


Bad reputation

by jazzy_yaku



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Character Death, Drug Use, Emotions, Fluff, I mean, Kyoutani doesnt show emotion, Like, Molestation, Multi, No Smut, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Really Slow Updates, Slow Build, Slow Updates, Suicidal Thoughts, Tags Are Fun, at all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 03:26:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13561761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzy_yaku/pseuds/jazzy_yaku





	1. Chapter 1

Good practice, as always," Oikawa smiles as he addresses the team, Yahaba Shigeru wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, the muscles in his legs and core trembling from their conditioning workouts. "Although some of us," Oikawa gestures to the team with his hands, "failed to show." 

Yahaba knows that the captain is talking about Kyoutani- although he's far too petty to announce the name allowed. It's a weekend workout, and if Kyoutani hardly shows at regular weekly workouts, it's no surprise that he fails to show his face at a Saturday workout. The dog isn't very consistent with anything he does. 

"Anyways- great practice!" Oikawa offers a thumbs-up and Iwaizumi gives out a loud scoff, the captain glaring at ace with his finely trimmed eyebrows furrowed. Yahaba swallows his spit and feels bother at the terrible case of cotton-mouth he's got- his throat feels as if it's been packed tight with balls of thick, white cotton. He glances at Watari, the shorter male that uses the collar of his shirt to wipe away the sweat that drips in large, fat beads from his neck, his bestfriend catching his glance and giving a large smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Yahaba offers a tired smile, longing for a cold shower and a couple tabs of ibuprofen, because he's sure he'll be sore when he rolls out of bed in the morning. 

Atleast it's Saturday, so tomorrow he'll have a day to rest before their practices begin again on Monday. He really can't wait for the shower- he's sweaty and sticky and gross, and his usually kept hair is nearly glued to his forehead. But he hardly cares, although it's highly uncomfterable, he's sweaty for a reason- an actual reason besides the fact the humidity is high today. 

"I'll see the rest of you slackers Monday!" Oikawa dismisses the team as a whole, and Yahaba stalks over to the bleachers for his bag, Watari in tow. 

Watari slings his bag over his shoulder, taking a swig from the cap of his water. "How do your legs feel?" 

"Dead, honestly." Yahaba answers and the two bust into a short spell of laughter. "I'm serious- I'm pretty sure their shaking." 

Watari chuckles an easy, breezy laugh. "I take your word for it- hey, Yahaba? Knock some sense into Kyoutani, would you? He only really listens to you." 

"He listens to Iwaizumi-San." Yahaba reasons, putting the straps of his bag on his shoulders, the two making their way from the gym with slow but fluid steps. 

"Yeah, yeah- don't we all?" Watari laughs. "But I think the dog could use another good scolding, don't you? You gave him quite the scare that one day." 

Yahaba sighs. "I don't know if I feel up to the task of screaming my lungs out just to get that blank stare afterwards. He hardly budged that day- it just flew his ego off, hurt his pride- that sorta thing." 

"Ahh." Watari clicks his fingers. "Your just too humble, I think." 

"I'll see you Monday, Watari-Kun." Yahaba ends the conversation there, as he pushes his way through the crowd of girls that surround Oikawa on the sidewalk. His captain is dismissing the group of squealing girls with a flick of his hand and an obviously flirtatious smile- one of the girls, plump and pig-faced, stomps off with tears welling in her eyes, and her equally just as pig-faced friend follows her, shouting her name into the open air. Yahaba tsks and moves along. 

Yahaba is ordinary- he isn't flirty- he couldn't flirt even if he tried, and he has once before. He's hardly eye-candy like Oikawa- his hair is basically parted and his smile lackluster, unvibrant and uninviting, and he has no special trait he can show off- his hieght is slightly above average, and his arms lack the thick biceps like Iwaizumi's, who had became all the attention along with his childhood friend. His appearance and personality don't scream anything along the lines of 'boyfriend material' , everything about him is hardly sharp- it's dull and unpointed. It's as if he's been filed down to a stub- like how some men keep their nails trimmed. 

That's probably why he's never once been on a date. With anyone. Girls don't flock him left and right, and he doesn't chase- his feet are always planted somewhere in a line between volleyball and his own studies, studies of education or of volleyball- and normally both- because both of them are equal in his list of priorities, whereas relationships are barely above trying to not burn a pot of boiling water. He doesn't think he's ever truly wanted any sort of a relationship either- the types of things are petty and hard to keep consistent. 

Like Kyoutani's appearances to volleyball practices. Yahaba isn't sure if he should take Watari's antics to the heart and cuss the wing spiker until he's purple in the face, or if he should let the slacking dog figure his own way through it. Yahaba thinks that his attempt at the match against Karasuno was a lucky fit- he thinks that had it not been smack in the middle of a game, had it not been on the court, Kyoutani wouldn't have listened to his yelling and pestering at all. 

As Yahaba crosses the threshold into his home and toes of his shoes, he also can't help but think- no one on the team knows a lick of shit about Kyoutani. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Kyoutani is a mystery to them all- an angry, violent, dangerous boy of a fucking mystery. Yahaba isn't sure if the team would even know his first name, had it not been written on his club application from their first year. But no one calls him Kentarou - it's Kyoutani. Or Mad-Dog-Chan. Or just Mad Dog. He as no solid name for anyone, but he's not nice to anyone, either. 

Yahaba wonders if something made the wing spiker that way- or if he was just a dick-head and birth. Maybe it's genetic- who knows- because Yahaba doesn't. Kyoutani is a mystery set to remain. 

But Yahaba won't pick him apart. Won't search for clues. Because that's too much work- time that Yahaba doesn't have. It'd be too tiring, trying to piece together the clues his gathered himself to try to unravel the mystery that is Kyoutani. Kyoutani will be a mystery never solved, never uncovered, never unraveled- and Yahaba thinks it might be way better to keep it that way. 

Unlike people like Watari- a kind, heart-driven libero who everyone knows everything about. Watari has never been any sort of mystery- he's a book that everyone's flipped over, turned over, and read. Watari is breezy, Kyoutani is a solid brick wall. Watari is flowing water, Kyoutani is cold, solid ice. 

And Yahaba is somewhere inbetween. Yahaba is either the frigid air that freezes the ice, or the current that pushes the water. He is either the trees that push the wind or the cement that holds the bricks together. He is the middle, a fine line of them  inbetween. Not unsolvable, but difficult to crack- not an opened book that you understand the first chapter. No, you have to read a little deeper than that. 

Yahaba peels off his clothes, and the cloth pulls at his skin, sticky and dry and dirty with old sweat. He runs the water cold, somewhere between freezing ice and warm coffee. He likes his showers hot but not scorching or cold but not freezing. It's his mood and the day that determines how he likes a shower, or a drink, of is he sleeps with one or two blankets that night. 

As he lathers some brand of apple-scented  (or is watermelon? He can't tell) he hears his phone ding from its spot on the counter, but he chooses to ignore it- a simple text could wait until he has his own time to check it. It never hurt anyone to be patient for only a handful of minutes so he could shower. 

The shampoo is rinsed and his body is washes in admittedly, his own mother's body wash. He's been out of his for a week, but his mother can't seem to remember to write it on the grocery list, or she somehow forgets when she goes a picks up their dinner every night. But that fact upsets him none- his mother's body wash smells flowery, it's a truly wonderful scent, that always bleeds through her clothes when she hugs him, or floats into his nose when she kisses him goodbye, or goodnight, or good luck. His mother has always been a very affectionate, touchy-grabby woman- never wishy-washy and always sure. Affectionate, but not chokingly so- Yahaba thinks his mother makes one of the best. 

His phone rings for the second time, and he takes the cue to speed up his shower a bit. It could be urgent- Watari or his mother or Oikawa might've found themselves in some sort of an accident, and Yahaba may have been the first contact they saw. Or maybe it's just a 'come hang out with us!' Text, that he, along with everyone else, gets regularly from Hanamaki and Mattsun. Or Oikawa's canceled their practice Monday. It can be something large or something small, but his out of the shower with a couple soap suds still clinging to his legs. He flips open his phone and clicks on the two unread messages. 

Kyoutani : I need your help. 

Kyoutani : What the fuck. I'm being serious. 

Yahaba scoffs. What could Kyoutani actually need, besides a big goddamn wake up call? Yahaba takes a couple long, glorious seconds to towel dry his hair and wrap the towel around his waist before he calls the wing spiker. 

"Yahaba." Kyoutani picks up after the second ring, his voice gruff against the phone. 

"What the hell do you want, Kyoutani? I'm not going to give Oikawa - San or Iwaizumi-San one of your shitty excuses." Yahaba doesn't question for a single second if he sounds too harsh- Kyoutani's a big boy, he can take it. 

"No, what the fuck? That's not what I need." Kyoutani pauses, and his voice gets quieter. "I need a place to stay." 

"What? Why?" Yahaba balances his phone against his ear with his shoulder as he picks out his pajamas for the night. "What's going on?" 

"I got… kicked out." The dog admits from the other side of the line, letting out a large breath. "And I don't have anywhere else to go?" He doesn't offer anymore than that. 

"What'd you do to get kicked out?" Yahaba pushes, drying off his legs. "I'm going to need the complete story before I let you stay with me- if I let you stay with me. I don't want someone whose addicted to drugs in my house." 

"Fuck, Yahaba, that's," He pauses. "It's not drugs. I'm not that stupid, despite what you think, you fucking dick. It's legit." The last two words of Kyoutani's little speech come out strained, and there's a soft grunt that's followed by a muffled 'shit'. 

"Kyoutani?" Yahaba pauses in drying himself for a moment as the line goes dead silent. Then there's a sound of ruffling, and a soft 'thunk' of the phone hitting something. Yahaba has to strain to hear anything from the other line- but what he does comes out slightly muffled. 

"I thought I told you to get the fuck out, boy," is what he hears- something muffled and slurred and violent. It's a man's voice, that sounds very similar to Kyoutani's own. Yahaba figures it's his father. 

"I'm getting out." Kyoutani's own voice has lost some of its edge, it comes out slightly pinched, and Yahaba pictures him sitting on his phone and biting his lip as he speaks. "I'm packing to go." 

"Fuck, Kentarou." The man assumed as his father curses. Yahaba feels his eyes widen- he's never heard Kyoutani's first name dip off of anyone's lips- and the first time he does, it's soaked and dripping in venom. "When I told you to fucking get out, I meant now- are you stupid, Kentarou?" 

"No." Kyoutani forces. "I'm leaving." 

"Who you stayin' with, boy?" Yahaba hears heavy footsteps through the phone- the man has to be straight stomping to be heard through the muffled phone. "Someone you done sucked off, huh?" 

"No." Kyoutani defends, and Yahaba hears the sharp sound of skin meeting skin. "Ain't sucking off nobody for nothing." His accent bleeds something Yahaba isn't used to hearing- no doubt Kyoutani talks with a filter if he ever does. 

"Fucking faggot." The words make Yahaba's blood run an icey cold. There's the sound of skin on skin again, followed by a sharp grunt from one of the two. "I can't believe I raised a faggot of a son, actually- isn't that fucking ironic, Kentarou? Isn't it?" 

"Sure is." Is Kyoutani's response. Another slap, another grunt, and the phone shakes from whatever it's being covered with. "Now if you'll let me go, I'll leave." 

"Your mother's raised you all wrong. Fucking bitch- raising you to do what you want- but hears the real world truth, Kentarou. It's not about what you want, ain't it? It's about what people want from you, you understand." 

"Ma did nothing wrong." Kyoutani defends his mother's side, and Yahaba wonders why they talk of her in what sounds like she's not located in the present. 

"Right- right, of course," Another slap. Or a punch, Yahaba isn't sure of which. He can tell by the way it sounds it's physical, though, and that's all he needs to try not to breathe to heavily into the phone or fall as he slowly pulls on baggy shorts. "Nothing she did was wrong- so is it you, then? You turned yourself this way, then? You off and went drove yourself a faggot, right? Blowing on the streets? Yeah- I wonder where you get all that damn money to spend on that shit you call a sport, Kyoutani." There's more contact, and it's followed by a loud round of barking. 

"Damn dog. I'll fucking kill that goddamn piece of shit- when I get done with you."

"Don't hurt my dog," is Kyoutani's response to what his father's said. It's blatant disregard for himself- as if his dog is more important. "Miko-Chan's barking cause your hitting me." 

"Shit, boy!" His father bursts out into a round of drunk laughter. "You care so much for that worthless damn dog. Maybe I should treat you the same? Maybe I'd get some more fucking respect here? Sit, Kentarou!" 

"What the f-" Kyoutani's cut off by a smack. 

"I said sit, Kentarou." 

"I'm already fucking sitting?" Kyoutani curses, his voice soaked in agitation. Yahaba holds his breath in his throat. 

"On the fucking floor, you fucking dog." It's too real- the fact that his father is calling Kyoutani a 'dog' when half of the team calls Kyoutani that on the daily. Yahaba's lungs burn and his forced himself back into a pattern of breathing again. "See? Was it that fucking hard, mutt?" 

Yahaba pictures Kyoutani sitting on the floor, gazing up at his father with a burning fire of something that resembles hate in his eyes. 

"Now get the fuck out of here, faggot ass dog." His dad breathes, and he hears a rustling of something that resembles the sound of someone hurriedly grabbing things. "I don't want to see your face around here, Kentarou. And don't think I'll give a lick shit of cash, I think you got that shit handled on your own." There's a slamming of the door that follows. 

Yahaba can hear by the rustling off the other line that Kyoutani's moving frantically along in his room. Yahaba can hear the door open again, and he finches- expecting to hear another bout of yelling. 

"Miko-Chan," Kyoutani huffs, and there's a soft whining from a dog that Yahaba's never heard anything about. "I'm sorry, Miko-Chan. We're going somewhere, alright? You've gotta come with me now." 

Yahaba clears his throat, surprised at the fact that's the first time he's heard that wing spiker sound that genuine. He hears the soft clacking of a dog's nails on wooden panels, and he hears a thud of something hitting the floor. 

"We're climbing out of the window again, Miko-Chan." Kyoutani says to the dog, the phone almost seemingly forgotten until Yahaba hears words directed at him. 

"Shit. Can I bring my dog?" Kyoutani asks, as the wing spiker grunts, Yahaba picturing him trying to push open a paint-sealed window pane. 

"I….." Yahaba is at a loss for words- his mom isn't even home yet- what would she say if she suddenly came home with another boy and a dog in the presence of her own home? Without her own consent? Yahaba's mother is a very sweet, reasonable woman, but Yahaba couldn't ever imagine him being a parent and being okay with something like that. 

"He'll kill her if I don't." Kyoutani breathes, nearly pleading. "It won't be long, shit- I'll get some money like I've been doing. I'll move out or something…. I just don't got that kind of shit right now." 

Yahaba wishes his mother would would show her face now. "Okay…" Yahaba pauses. "I can't come get you- my mom has the car and she isn't home. Do we need to meet somewhere?" 

"The park." Kyoutani shoots out the answer, Yahaba hearing a released breath as the window has finally been pushed open. "It's dark and I don't want Pa to find me and Miko-Chan. He'll have our asses if he finds me anywhere close to here." 

"I'll be there." Yahaba decides, pulling a shirt. He pulls on a pair of older looking tennis shoes without a pair of socks, and he wiggles his toes at the extra room he gets from the lack of the fabric of a sock. "I'll text my mom on the way." 

"Okay." Is all Kyoutani says, before the line clicks, signaling that Kyoutani's ended the call. 

"So much for being a fucking mystery," Yahaba breaths, sending his text to his mother as he rushes out the front door, locking it behind him with his house keys. He's sure his mother will be understanding- willing to help despite the extra two mouths to feed. 

From Yahaba : Mom, I might not be home when you get there. I had a… friend get in bad trouble. He needs somewhere to stay, so I'm letting him stay with us, if that's okay? It's him and his dog. I love you.

He sends the message and Yahaba flips the top of his phone over as he uses the street lights to light his way to the park where the setter is positive Kyoutani is already sitting and waiting, probably with a busted lip or something. Yahaba feels like he should run, make it quick and brief, but his legs still have a jelly-like texture to them, and he's unsure he'd even think of running that far at this moment. He remembers he's forgotten to dry his hair all the way or pop some ibuprofen. 

He sits at the closest park bench and takes his phone out of his pocket. He texts Kyoutani, telling the wing spiker that he's sitting in one of the park benches that overlooks the rusted, iron swingset. His mom responds as he sends his text to Kyoutani. 

Mom <3 : It's fine, I'm glad your helping out your friend- I'll be sure I bring home some extra food tonight. I hope you showered after practice! I'll leave it up to you and you friend to tell me why he got in such big trouble. I'll see you when you get home, Shigeru! Luv you 2!

He breathes relief. He expected that much from his mother, and he's thankful for the woman who birthed him some seventeen years ago. 

There's a slump of someone throwing their body against the bench beside him. A dog leaps up into the lap of the boy- of Kyoutani, who holds the canine like it's a stuffed bear and he's having a nightmare. 

"It's okay if we stay, right?" Kyoutani says, the edge and fire in his voice has long since died out. It sounds numb, so unlike the voice that Yahaba is used to hearing, and it sends a wave of unfamiliar shivers up his spine, because for that split moment, he feels nothing but deep, gut - wrenching fear as he wonders just how hurt Kyoutani is. 

"Yeah, it's fine." He finally gets out, leaning his body against the bench. "Did you really jump out of the window?" 

"Had no other way out." Kyoutani responds, Yahaba straining his eyes to try to examine the wing spiker's face in the dark that surrounds them. The dull, orange lighting of the streetlight a couple of feet away doesn't do its justice as Yahaba sits on the bench, trying to see just what he's about to get himself drug into. 

"Come on, my mom should be home soon." Yahaba offers as he stands, feeling his phone vibrate in his hands. "She's bringing home dinner." 

"Miko-Chan, c'mon." Kyoutani gives a click at the dog that's settled itself deep into the confinement of her owners lap. Yahaba guides him and the dog, who walks right on Kyoutani's heels, down through the nieghborhoods toward his house. Yahaba doesn't try to make a single word of small talk, he only says what he has too, and Kyoutani tries not to speak at all. 

They turn onto Yahaba's street, and Yahaba can see his mom's car parked outside in the driveway, his mom's shadowy figure leaning into the back seat to carry in groceries. Yahaba picks up his pace to help her, and they tech the house as she pulls out the last of the bags. He amrs a loaded, and she smiles at her son as he unlocks the door for her. 

"Back already, Shigeru-Kun!" She gives Yahaba a teeth - glittering smile. "Just in time! Come, take the dinner to the table." 

"Momma," Yahaba says, taking the bags from her. "That's-" his mother jerks her body around, looking straight into Kyoutani's dull eyes. 

Yahaba finally gets a good look at the wing spiker now that there's enough lighting. Nothings shadowy- his lip his cracked, and he wipes the blood off the the back of his hand as it drips in two different spots on the bottom. There's a line of a cut that runs itself across Kyoutani's nose, another on his cheek, another on his forehead, and his eyelid looks slightly swollen, working itself into turning a dark purple. His face is slacked, no doubt sore and bruised and hurting, and he stands slightly turned to the side, like there's an issue with the left side of his stomach. Yahaba takes it all in in a single glance, and turns to putting the groceries away. 

"Oh my-" his mother gives a soft gasp. "Looks like you could use some help- come with me, dear. I have a little first aid kit upstairs-" his mother drags Kyoutani up the stairs, the amazingly quiet dog following the two, her nose pressing itself into the back of the wing spiker's thigh. 

Yahaba distracts himself by taking an agonizingly long time to put away the groceries and setting the table for dinner. He's normally serene thoughts have been broken, as his mind replays the conversation between Kyoutani and his drunk father that happened only a few minutes ago. Yahaba wonders if he had been able to stay so calm during a situation like that, but he feels he would've already had atleast two or three breakdowns by now. 

He wonders if Kyoutani is even broken- like the water remains froze over even as the sun sits pulsing itself in the sky. He wonders if that ice has even cracked at all- Yahaba knows that ice eventually cracks if it's too thin, but Kyoutani is the thick kind of ice that people skate over- the ice that takes weeks to even thin out. Yahaba wonders if Kyoutani's even thinned out at all. 

Yahaba knows he would've broke long ago. 

Yahaba has unintentionally unraveled a clue about the mystery named Kyoutani. It's a large, juicy clue- but there's a lot of cement that glues the bricks down to form a strong wall. Yahaba has only just left a mark on the surface- he's just left a tiny scratch. He's dented nothing- but he knows a little more, and there's no way he thinks he could forget the conversation he heard muffled from across the phone. Kyoutani really is mystery- it's only a coincidence that Yahaba had found out about his father's drunken abuse. 

But there's other bits of the conversation Yahaba can't forget about, either. His father's words where more clues, more ways of undoing. Had Kyoutani really been using sexual acts to get money? Had he really been blowing people on the corner to pay for volleyball? For all the extra things that required cash? He couldn't forget the ways of his father's terminology, either- with his venom-dipped words of saying things like 'faggot' and dis-owning his own son for it. Was Kyoutani really gay? It had sounded as if that concept had been the root of the violent argument. 

Yahaba rolled his fingers through his damp hair, feeling slightly stressed already. Kyoutani is a mystery alright- a fucking stressful one. Kyoutani just showed up in his house and Yahaba's already sure his pulled out his hair three times now. He wonders if Kyoutani has told any bit of his story to his mother- although she was a kind reasonable, understanding woman, he wondered if his mother could dig a little deeper into the undoing of Kyoutani Kentarou. 

Kentarou. It feels weird to think off Kyoutani's full name, and Yahaba wonders how it would sound coming from his own lips- would it sound skeptical, like a teacher that got stuck calling on him to come to the board? Violent, like his father's words laced with poison? Lackluster, like Yahaba himself- like how he felt? Kyoutani Kentarou, Yahaba finds, is anything but lackluster. Mysterious people, sheltered people, are the ones the lacklusters persue. 

It's so fucking common, so fucking sappy, Yahaba almost gags. Lackluster Yahaba, attempting to undo this unique thing of a boy. This unique thing of mystery and masks and walls and curses and violence and anger. 

God, Yahaba needed dinner. 

"He said he wasn't hungry- I let him lay in your bed." His mother says as she walks into the kitchen, wrapping her arms around Yahaba and offering up a kiss on the forehead. "He told me everything- and I'd say I'm pretty shocked. Kyou-Kun doesn't take like he'd listene to very many people." 

"He doesn't." Yahaba says, hugging his mother back. "Look, Momma, we don't even like each other. I don't even know why he decided to call me of all people- he had the entire rest of the volleyball team to lean on, Momma." 

She pulls back, her long-fingered hands resting on his shoulders so she can look Yahaba straight in his eyes. His mother has the long, gracious fingers of a setter- a position she never learned the basics off. His mother played women's basketball out off everything she could've chosen in highschool. "Does he really, Shigeru? Does Kyou-Chan really have the entire volleyball team to lean on?" 

Yahaba swallows deep. "No, not really." He admits. "But he doesn't have me, either, is what I'm getting at, Momma. Kyoutani literally has nobody but Miko-Chan." 

"If he really didn't have you, you think he'd be asleep in your bed with his busted face and his cute dog?" His mother challenges, pulling away to make their bowls of food. "There's no need to think so selfishly, Shigeru. You may think little of him, but I'm starting to think he sees you as a friend, and maybe your the same way, baby." 

"Momma- we'll be okay, right?" Yahaba asks as his mother heats up his bowl for him. 

She smiles. "Of course- when have we never not made it work? Kyou-Chan is quite the addition, isn't he? Look, tomorrow, we can talk this out a little more. In the mean time, why don't you just let me do the worrying? Your two young to have grey hairs, but I think I might see some already, Shigeru-Kun." 

His mother laughs at her light teasing, and Yahaba feels his face slide into a calming smile. His mother knows how to make him feel better- his mother is such of a good one, he thinks for a moment why Kyoutani's own mother was talked of so lightly, ad if she had never been in the picture at all- like Kyoutani was a motherless boy past a point of no return. 

Because there was no way in hot red hell of Kyoutani going back to his home to stay. His split lip and bruised face was only a little bit of a tease- a tease into the real pain his father could cause. If Kyoutani went back home…. It'd be a loss of a life- Miko-Chan's or his or both. It wouldn't be mystery Kyoutani. It'd be dead Kyoutani. Murdered Kyoutani. It'd be something Yahaba doesn't think he'd be able to shake, after hearing what he did, or after seeing those fresh wounds like the one along the bridge of his nose that's bound to scar. It'll scar- all jagged, a line unsmooth, a milky white in contrast to his skin. But Yahaba can't see the scars that have traced themselves along the inside. No one can see those but Kyoutani himself, and that's a cruel truth- Yahaba can't help him in that kind of way- so it's up to Kyoutani to fix himself. 

"Your thinking, Shigeru." His mom points to him with a chopstick as she chews. "What's going on in that head of yours?" 

"Nothing' Momma," He tells the little white fib with ease, but the cogs in his brain are whirring, driven by a battery that Kyoutani's lengthy phone call had placed in its socket. He's bound to get a headache if he doesn't stop his thoughts from running haywire. "I'm just….." He stops and sighs. 

"I wanna help." He admits, pushing his food around his plate. "But I don't know how? Kyoutani isn't exactly open, and he's an asshole, and I don't really think it'd be worth the fight of trying." 

"I recognized him from that game, you know," she says, fighting back a laugh and a smile. "I saw how you where quick on your feet- how you pushed him up against that wall and screamed at him till your face was that angry red it gets. How's this any different? Is it because he finally has an underlying reason to why he does what he does, why he acts how he acts? Or is it because you know a little more than the rest of them? You know more about what's going on than anyone else on that team- because your right- Kyoutani won't be poked open like you potentially could. So you'll have to try harder." 

"But momma, that's different." 

"Hardly." She let's out a scoff and rolls her eyes, her head tilting slightly to the left. "He obviously trusts you, Shigeru. Why would he have called for you help, had he not? I'm sure the captains house would've been more viable, that Captain of yours seems much more approachable. Look, Shigeru, there's only so much I can do, because to that boy I'm a stranger. Some part of you isn't to him." 

"Momma, I don't even consider Kyoutani a friend. He's just a teammate. He's hardly anything to me." Yahaba defends, feeling tired. 

"I don't think that's the case at all," she let's out an easy laugh. "I wasn't born yesterday, Shigeru. Your heads all caught up with him, and if you don't think your friends with him yet, I'll see to it that you will be." 

His mother stands and drops her empty dish into the sink, softly so it hardly makes a single noise. "Remember- you could've always said no on that phone call." 

Yahaba probably should've done just the thing. He should've told Kyoutani no. But he didn't- so now his stuck with the wing spiker sleeping in his bed until he magically coughs up his own cash to move into his own place. Yahaba suddenly has an added weight on his shoulders, that weight being Kyoutani himself, Kyoutani in the flesh. 

Yahaba rinses the dishes before he makes he way upstairs into his room, going to grab one of the spare blankets he keeps off somewhere in the black hole he has of a closet. When he quietly pushes open his door, there's instantly a bark and a dog appears at his feet, checking him out. 

"Shh, Miko-Chan," He coos, scratching the dog at his ears. "I'm not a bad guy." He reassures the dog, who pushes it's head up against his hand. He's calmed down the dog, who's probably been alert since Yahaba met Kyoutani in the park. 

"See?" He asks the dog, who gives a soft bark as she begs for him to not stop scratching her ears. The dog has soft fur- it's a Golden Retriever of sort, Yahaba thinks, but it's also a mix of something else, another breed, because it's fur is a mixture of that golden blonde and brown. "It's just me- I'm just grabbing some of my things. Why don't you go lay with Kyoutani?" 

The dogs ears perk as Yahaba says her owners name. "Miko-Chan, go on." He just needs his blanket, and Yahaba has never been a huge fan off dogs. But the dog won't budge, she actually plops her body down on Yahaba's bare feet. He let's out a loud sigh. 

"Go lay with Kyou-" 

"Miko-Chan, come here." Kyoutani gives a click of his tongue, and the dog lofts herself off of his feet, looks Yahaba over for good measure, and jump up onto his bed, Kyoutani's arms wrapping around as he tries to lick at his face. "She doesn't trust you yet." 

"I figured." Yahaba scoffs, making his way across the room to his closet, feeling the burn of Miko-Chan's eyes on him as he does. He flicks on the closet light and digs through his stacks of folded clothes. "Where the fuck," He curses, but sighs when he feels the blanket rub soft against his palm. 

He turns to Kyoutani. "Does she always act that way?" 

Kyoutani looks at his dog fondly, rolling over to face the cieling, not Yahaba, who cradles a blanket in his arms. "Mmhmm." He says simply. "She's a good dog, but she doesn't like strangers. I'm tired, could'ya get out?" 

"You forget your in my bed, you piece of shit," Yahaba scowls, flicking off the closet light. "Your lucky my mother is a kind soul." 

"She is." Kyoutani stops to cough, staring down at his hand as he does. He sits up straight after that, his palm extended, eyebrows furrowed. "We'll fucking hell, that shits new." 

Yahaba flicks on the bedroom light, turning to face Kyoutani, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth. It's hardly there at all, Yahaba would've missed it had he not turned the light off. He would've missed the puddle of blood that sits in the center of Kyoutani's palm. 

Kyoutani coughs again, Yahaba watching the blood fly from his lips. The red liquid splatters his fingers, his arms, and Yahaba's own white sheets are dotted with the spray. "Shit." Kyoutani curses, blood dripping off of his chin, holding his hand out infront of him, arm extended, Kyoutani holds the blood like it's a foreign object that he's never seen before. 

"What the fuck, Kyoutani?" Yahaba curses. "I'll go get Momma. Don't…. Don't fucking move." 

Kyoutani explodes in another round of wet coughs, his hand no longer doing justice in catching the red liquid that shoots from his mouth, there's suddenly a red streak that runs itself along Yahaba's white sheets, and Miko-Chan jumps off the bed when the blood settles itself on her fur. It looks as if Kyoutani vomits up the stuff, from the way it shoots itself out of the back of his throat. Yahaba takes his cue and hurriedly walks down the stairs. 

"Momma?" He calls urgently, peeking into the kitchen, where his mom sits at the table, stacks of papers and envelopes surrounding her. She's typing away at a calculator, her check book splayed open in front of her. "Momma!?" 

"What's wrong, Shigeru?" She says, hearing the urgency bleeding through his call for her. He only uses that kind of tone when he's hurt or sick, or when she's hurt or sick or crying over whatever it is she gets her head caught up in. "Shigeru?" 

"Kyoutani's coughing up blood, Momma," Yahaba urges, beckoning to her. "Hurry up, Momma." He says, as he hurries along with her upstairs. 

Miko-Chan has her head laying on Kyoutani's lap, and her head jerks up at the sudden footsteps into Yahaba's room. She notices it's only safe people, and she rests her head along Kyoutani's trembling thigh. 

The front of Kyoutani's shirt collar is stained a thick red that's dripped off of his chin from his coughing fits. His eyes are bloodshot and watering with tears from the effort it's taking to cough up the thick liquid that could choke him if he doesn't. His lips tremble, tinted red with blood, and there's a sudden spurt of the liquid as it catches in his throat. 

"Fuck me." His mom curses, rushing over to the wing spiker that's sitting, soaked in blood and sweat. Miko-Chan gets her cue and leaps from the bed, eyeing her owner with a glance that Yahaba takes as pure worry. "Kyou-Kun?" His mother's gaze flicks from his face to his stomach and she lifts the clothing, a steady hand keeping the coughing boy upright. 

"Shit." Yahaba curses before he catches himself, eyes widening at the large, almost black bruises that decorate Kyoutani's stomach flesh. His mom looks at him worriedly for a moment. "Shigeru, I need your help to get him into the car." Kyoutani fits himself into another coughing spell, the blood splattering whatever it touches. "Shhh, Kyou-Kun." His mother coos, using both hands now to help lean him foreward. She waits until the coughing fit ends to beckon over Yahaba with a hand. "Help me, Shigeru." 

They lift the boy off of the bed, Yahaba looping one of his arms over his shoulder. It's not a lie- Kyoutani feels dense and heavy as he leans against Yahaba and his mother, and they rush out of the door, shutting it closed, not even bothering the lock. Yahaba seats himself in the backseat with Kyoutani, who's slumped his body against him. His eyes wavering shut. 

"Oi, keep your eyes open." Yahaba pokes him in the shoulder. Kyoutani only offers the weakest of nods, cracking heavy eyelids open. Fresh tears roll out of his eyes and Yahaba almost gasps in shock. 

Kyoutani can cry? Somewhere along the lines Yahaba's forgotten that although brash and destructive and violent, Kyoutani is just like him, somewhere deep in whatever keeping the real wing spiker from the real world. The boy that skips practice and pushes others in the hall- the boy that Yahaba had screamed at, that was the myster- that boy was a false Kyoutani Kentarou. But this boy- this boy that cries on Yahaba's shoulder as he hacks up blood because his father beats him- this boy that shoved away his own well-being for that of his dog- this boy is the true Kyoutani Kentarou. 

The world should see this Kyoutani, this Kentarou. The world shouldn't see destructive Kentarou. Shouldn't see violent Kentarou. The world should see the Kentarou who rests his blood - stained face on Yahaba's shoulder. The world should know the true Kyoutani Kentarou. 

With these clues hacked away from Kyoutani's own flesh, Yahaba melds it into a thought and stores it into a space in his brain. It's so much for Yahaba not trying to unravel the mystery of Kyoutani Kentarou, because he's already scratched the surface, and he wants to go picking for more. Yahaba decides that it will be Kyoutani Kentarou he'll spend his time to unraveling. 

Kyoutani Kentarou is a mystery that must be solved. And solve Yahaba will- because true Kyoutani Kentarou is anything but lackluster, like Yahaba. True Kyoutani Kentarou is something shimmering, something blindingly bright. Kyoutani Kentarou is nothing but blinding. Kyoutani Kentarou, although quiet and reserved, is something bright, despite the fact Yahaba has never seen him smile. Not once, and maybe he never will crack open this mystery far enough to even dream of seeing that. 

"Kyoutani? Shh." Yahaba coos, not wincing as the tears mix with the blood that soaks into the sleeve of his shirt. That can be washed out later. 

But if the real Kyoutani Kentarou dies, that will never be washed away. 

\---

Word Count : 6,876 Words.   
-This is the longest chapter I've ever written !

-I'm so shocked I got out almost 7,000 words without realizing- that's crazy! This started as honestly a random idea, that switched as I went along. I've planned ahead absolutely nothing- and I regret nothing, all the same!   
-I actually planned for this to be a Shape-Shifter AU! Titled : 'Whoa, Doggie'. I planned for the original to be Yahaba Central POV, where Yahaba finds a strange looking dog outside of practice (who later is revealed as a curse Kyoutani), which is why this chapter begins with Oikawa dismissing a weekend practice. I was listening to music, and Spotify just so happened to play 'Bad Reputation' by Shawn Mendes. That song then turned my planned plot around, and a couple other songs played in my Playlist that ultimately got my attention and helped me squeeze our such a great chapter. I'm gonna list the songs that helped give me ideas for my chapter (and I'll probably find more to list as more chapters come out). Anyone else dislike Yahaba talking down about himself? Yeah, I do, too.   
-I can give a slight chapter overview but I don't know if that'll stay the same once I actually get in the zone of writing. I hope you enjoyed :)!   
(Will be cross-posted between Wattpad & Fanfiction.Net) 

Chapter Two Overview: Yahaba fears for Kyoutani's life, Yahaba meets his father, Yahaba has a break down and cries- ft. A distressed Miko-Chan. More insight on Kyoutani's personal life, and Yahaba questions to tell Oikawa and Iwaizumi the news, so he goes to a friendly Watari for help. 

Listed songs : 

Bed Reputation - Shawn Mendes   
Losing Control - Russ  
Loyalty- Kendrick Lamar ft. Rihanna   
Love- Kendrick Lamar   
Don't- Bryson Tiller   
Immortals- Fall Out Boy   
Quit- Cashmere Cat ft. Arianna Grande   
Thunder- Imagine Dragons   
Believer- Imagine Dragons   
Whatever It Takes- Imagine Dragons   
Rise- Katy Perry   
Sign of the times- Harry Styles 

\- 'Bad Reputation' is the music behind my fic, it's what I'll play on loop to write to. The other songs are just what kept my focus on writing the fic, by as the fic is titled Bad Reputation, it's based off of the song itself (maybe not specifically just yet, but it will be). If you listen to the song while or after reading (especially the scene where Yahaba stays on the phone with Kyoutani) you'll see where the song helped me if you pay attention to the lyrics. 

\- 'Bad Reputation' is KyouHaba centric. It will include side pairs, like IwaiOi & MattsuHana, with a dash of YahaWata  (Friendly). The fic also centers around Aoba Johsai and the team, so most of the other teams will be hardly mentioned unless I write out volleyball matches. Some other pairings or ships may find their way into the story in the future, but for right now, KyouHaba centric (not in that order, though ;D). My fix will have angst and fluff, and a couple of warnings. Please don't ignore these- warnings are very important. 

Warnings of Abuse, Mental Illnesses, Self-Harm, Sexual/Mature situations, Gay Relationships, Drug/Alcohol Use, Mature Language, Harsh Discriptions, Mentions of Past Sexual Assault, and Flashbacks of Sexual Assault. 

-Warnings may change depending on the chapter, but those should be all - unless I forgot one. Expect a lot of foul language, honestly. I hope you enjoy and stick through with me !!! 

Estimated Read Time (for entire chapter, based on the document statistics) : 1 hour. 

\---


	2. Chapter 2

Waiting room chairs are always stiff and uncomfterable, no one can truly treat those chairs as if it's their living room couch or their bed that their sitting on. It's not only the chairs, but it's the smell to the room- like bleach and antiseptic and cleaner. It's the brightly painted walls- because apparently bright colors are for soothing the soul, or some kind of bullshit along those lines. Bright colors are supposed to represent happy news- emotions like joy and serenity and excitement. 

Yahaba feels none of these things. He feels that, should Kyoutani die in that oporation room, the only colors he'd find soothing would be dark. Not some pastel green- pitch black is how he imagines it. It's how he sees it- all dark, his eyes straining to make out basic shapes. But Kyoutani isn't dead. 

Yet. 

Yet is such a weighted word. When Yahaba thinks it, he's sure his awaiting the news of Kyoutani's death. Kyoutani will die. Kyoutani will die before offering the world what he has- the world won't know the Kyoutani that Yahaba wishes to know for himself. Yet holds so much weight- so much more than Yahaba's own name. Yahaba feels his chest constrict as his mom tries her best to fill out paper work for the lady at the front desk. 

"They told me they had no information on file…" She sighs, tapping the pen against the clip board. I don't even know this boys first name. Yahaba? Think you can help me out?" Her arms extend the clipboard out to him without a solid answer. 

He takes the pen from her and starts with the basic information- he signs in his neat print 'Kyoutani Kentarou' on the printed line. He fills his age out as 17, and lists his natural hair color as black- using the wing spiker's eyebrows as a guide. He checks the box that's printed next to Kyoutani's eye color. He skips the questions that ask for weight, height, and date of birth- because those he doesn't know. He's only recently earned a new interest in Kyoutani- not along the lines of the boy himself but of what he hides. The first couple questions he runs into are simple. 

'Does patient preticipate in any activities? Such as sports?" The pen scrapes the paper in a perfectly straight-lined check. He moves on. 

"Does patient seem excessively angry, compulsive, destructive, or unaware of his/her surroundings?" Yahaba's sure he's used these same words to describe the wing spiker before. Check. Moving on. 

"Is patient a victim of live-threatening mental illness? Or could patient be exposed to mental illness?" He thinks back to Kyoutani coughing blood, a fit caused by his own father's hands. He checks the box. 

The rest are questions that Yahaba would need to be Kyoutani's best friend to know. He takes the clipboard to the front desk, where the woman hardly looks up from her computer as she takes it. Yahaba walks back, his mother offering him a small smile. "Stop looking so tense, Shigeru." She speaks softly, as if her speaking a couple volumes louder would shoot Yahaba's nerves even more than they are now. Nerves are fragile things- and every single one of Yahaba's has somehow been individually plucked at like a guitar string. The things are fried- like a glass of water that's tipped over wires. 

"I'm not." Is his defense, as he slumps his body against the stiff back of the chair. Yahaba hates hospitals. He wants to get out- he thinks that in a couple of minutes that will become a need. His mother eyes him, clearly unsatisfied with his answer. 

"Your fidgeting, Shigeru. You never fidget." She says, and he catches how his leg shakes against the floor and how he keeps pulling at his fingers. 

He sighs. "Okay," He says, and she stands and wraps his arm around him. "I'm sure he'll be okay, Shigeru- part of me feels like this isn't the worst he's gone through. You don't know much about Kyou-Kun do you?" 

"No." He doesn't mean it too, but the end of the word gets caught in the back of his throat- and he wonders if that's how it had felt as Kyoutani's own blood had sputtered from his mouth. "No one does, Momma." 

"Kyou-Kun must have a lot of secrets, then." She pulls Yahaba close, running her fingers through his hair, that's tangled up because he never brushed it out and had let it air dry. "What do you know about him, Shigeru? Tell me it all." 

Yahaba swallows and breathes in the scent of his mother's body wash that he had used earlier. The flowery smell fits her more- it's so her, the scent is just something that reminds him of mother's warmth. And his entire body seeks it. 

"I know his name is Kentarou." He says first, because he doesn't know much of anything else. His mother's nails scratch along his scalp, the action motherly and comforting. He could sleep in her arms- had the situation been something less important. 

But Kyoutani is important. It's a fact- simple and blatant, like the fact that grass is green. That isn't an idea- that's a fact- and Kyoutani- Kentarou- being important is also not an idea. It's solid fact, like the writings of a textbook or correct math. Yahaba wonders why it's taken such a dangerous situation to prove that, because before now, Kyoutani had seemed like nothing- just another body in a crowd of thousands, of billions of people. Yahaba had singled him out now- Kyoutani had suddenly became one person standing out from thousands of billions of people. 

"Keep going," his mother urges, her voice floating with reassurance. "Tell me more about Kyou-Kun." 

"I know his hair isn't naturally blonde," Yahaba says, muffled against his mother's shoulder. He feels like a child again. "It's black- I don't know what he dyed it for. The two lines in it look stupid. I know that, too." 

His mother laughs. "You can't say one thing without being mean. But go on." 

"I know he likes volleyball." Yahaba offered. "I mean, he doesn't act like he does and he slacks at practice, but I think it might be all he has." His mother's fingers are very relaxing, her nails softly scratching at skin. She did the same thing when he was younger- when he couldn't sleep because of the monsters in his closet, or when they laid on the couch together and she did the action compulsively- because she claimed her sons hair was the softest she had ever felt. 

But eventually, he got older- the action in itself lessened to nearly nothing. The monsters in his closet eventually revealed themselves to be a couple of hung up coats, and they hardly spent days committing to movies. The action changed in itself- it became just a way to calm nerves of ease stress, or for another way for his mother to thread her fingers through the soft locks of hair that Yahaba hadn't gotten from her. Her hair was too stringy to feel so soft. The softness and volume of his hair came from his father himself. 

His mother urged him to continue. "One more? I'd like to know." 

"He'll die if he goes back." Yahaba says, the words thick in his throat and thick on the tip of his tongue and thick on the edge of his lips. "His father will kill him. And Miko-Chan. He'll kill them both." The harsh truth- the fact that Kyoutani's own father will kill him is a scary one. Yahaba never imagines the idea that a husband, and father, could do such a thing to his own child, but it's evident in the way Kyoutani's stomach is riddled with gigantic bruises, or how his lip is split and his nose cut open. It's evident in the way Yahaba's shirt, on his shoulder, is dried and crusted with a mixture of blood and tears- Kyoutani's own. Kyoutani will die if he goes back- or even if his father catches wind on where he goes. Kyoutani had warned Yahaba- Kyoutani had been in a hurry to get out of that house and to leave that park. 

Kyoutani knew his own father would kill him. Kyoutani knew that like he knew the correct footwork to a spike on volleyball. Knew that like he knew the sky was blue and that Tuesday comes after Monday. Knew that and accepted it. 

Kyoutani is stupid. Although brave, but stupid and brash and violent and the inbetween. Kyoutani had the strength to leave- to pay attention and know what he needed to do to get away. Kyoutani wouldn't be stupid enough to go back, Yahaba thinks, Kyoutani knows he'll get killed. Although Yahaba also knows of Kyoutani's own violent tendencies that bleed through in everything he does. Kyoutani is violent, dangerous even. Yahaba sees it in the way he hits things when he gets angry , Yahaba sees it in the way his back muscles bend at his will when he spikes the ball with such an intense power- that power is anger in itself. Kyoutani is always angry- always scowling and fuming and hot from the emotion itself. 

But Yahaba knows there's a soft bone in his body, somewhere. There's a soft side in the wing spiker that threatens to poke itself through undergrowth. Yahaba knows because he saw it in the way Kyoutani holds Miko-Chan, heard it in the way his voice nearly cracked when he told the canine they had to leave through the window again. 

Again. The escaping of earlier was not the first- that window had been opened before, and a wounded Kyoutani and a nervous Miko-Chan had jumped from that window before. This wasn't the first time his father had beat him- it blossomed in Yahaba something new to know that Kyoutani was probably abused on the regular- be it verbally or physically or however else you could abuse a person. Yahaba wonders how Kyoutani's hidden it all for so long, and kept quiet about it for so long. Kyoutani was abused and Kyoutani kept silent- Kyoutani was almost killed more times than one and he never told a soul.  

Yahaba thinks back to the look that Kyoutani had given him when Yahaba screamed his lungs out to him. Yahaba never had taken it as a look of fear- because Yahaba was never truly intimidating and because Kyoutani is fearless- he took it as a look of shock- because no one had wasted that much breath on Kyoutani as Yahaba had. No one had called Kyoutani out of his bullshit and Yahaba was no one to burn a fire so bright and bold and hot. 

Although Yahaba knew Kyoutani's own thoughts and his own actions and his own personality had been bred from the abuse- the hard-stoned personality of a boy had been beaten into him by the hands of his father. There's no way Kyoutani was like such a thing as a tiny kid- in Yahaba's mind, four year old Kyoutani did all the kid things. The smiling and the laughing and the squealing. The coloring and the playing and the singing of the alphabet. The excitement at learning to count or the tiny hands that would get sticky from holding candy for too long, trying to savor every single piece even though there was always someone to toss you more. He sees a tinier, skinnier, more approachable Kyoutani without the sharp eyes and the scowl. A Kyoutani with black hair instead of blonde. A Kyoutani before abuse, before having to fear his life in the hands of his father- a being that all kids innocently loved because a Daddy can do no wrong, and a Mommy can never do the same. 

Yahaba knows it must've hurt, when Younger Kyoutani had realized his Daddy had hurt him. When younger Kyoutani grew a couple years older and grew by the foot, and adopted the constantly scowling face and the angry eyes that glared holes- that must've hurt something knew, because Younger Kyoutani had changed, not from a willingness of his own but from the sharp cuts of his father's own voice and the hard hits from his father's own hands. The first time Kyoutani had been hit, Kyoutani had learned not to innocently love. His father had ruined him of whatever the true Kyoutani had had to offer. His father had taken the uncapped potential and hit it until it broke. 

Yahaba wonders if Kyoutani's father would take Oikawa's own personal quote to the heart. 'If your going to hit something, hit it until it breaks!'. The words, coming from Oikawa's mouth, had held a different meaning- Oikawa was in no way abusive, or brash in those kinds of ways. It had been an innocent quote of his own that talked about volleyball. Yahaba's body tensed- it would hold am entirely different meaning had it dripped from the lips of Kyoutani's father. If his father had said Oikawa's famous line on his own, it wouldn't be an innocent quote in regards to a sport, but a harsh truth in regards to Kyoutani himself, because this time, and a couple of times before, Kyoutani had been hit with the means to be broken. 

Kyoutani had became the something of Oikawa's line. Switch out the two things and it still fit- If your going to hit Kyoutani, hit him until he breaks. That was his own father's line, his quote, adapted from Oikawa's own in Yahaba's mind, because there was no way Kyoutani's father knew anything of Oikawa. 

"We'll have to keep him from going back." Yahaba declares, unaware of the fact that he's been crying until his voice breaks and he realizes his cheeks are wet. "He can't go back- Kyoutani can't go back." 

"He's staying with us," his mother said, her fingers switching from rubbing his scalp to twisting different strands of hair between her fingers. "He won't go back- me and you will make sure of it if he does. I think Kyou-Kun is smarter than that." 

Yahaba sniffs. "I don't even fucking care about him. I don't even know why the hell he came to me when I'm not even if friend. I don't even know him and he doesn't know me and now I get to deal with his problems and make them mine." His voice sounds defeated and angry and wet. He stumbles over the words because some of them find themselves caught in his throat.

"I think it's a little different than that, 'Ru." She says, his nickname fluttering from her lips. A wave of calming nostalgia runs through his body and almost makes him quiver, because he feels more relaxed already with the simple play of words. "Maybe you don't care about him- that much yet- but there's a reason he scoped you out. Maybe your the only one who doesn't scare him." 

"Scare him? Kyoutani?" Yahaba let's out a breathy scoff. "Kyoutani isn't afraid of anything, Momma." 

"If he wasn't afraid of anything, he'd be long dead by now." She says, letting out a breath. "No one's fearless- what if his own violent ways are a defense mechanism because he's afraid there's more people out there like his father? Because his father's done nothing but give him a taste of the real world." 

She's right. Kyoutani's own violent ways put up as the wall and his own brash personality the cement that keeps those bricks intact- it makes since. Kyoutani is afraid of, maybe not being hit, but he's afraid of the way others would take him. He's afraid of the knew things- the things he doesn't know and of the real world. His father had given him a glimpse of the concept- yet a bad one. Kyoutani feared the entire world was bad and he would shoulder that burden alone. Somewhere along the lines, Yahaba is sure that it's been beaten into Kyoutani to do just that, and maybe Kyoutani thinks that all these things are his own fault. Kyoutani has been beaten broken and it happened a long time ago. True Kyoutani has been  buried beneath the soil of fake Kyoutani- because fake Kyoutani doesn't put trust into people because he doesn't want to- because everyone makes him angry. Real Kyoutani is scared of trust because of the innocent love that had slit his wrists with a blade the first time his father had hit him. Fake Kyoutani is only the sturdy wall of True Kyoutani's defenses. 

Yahaba thinks that true Kyoutani may have bleed through a crack when Yahaba's phone had rang, or when Yahaba had met him at the park under the lights of nothing but the moon and a couple of streetlamps. When Kyoutani had both tears and blood dribbling off of his face an unto the awaiting sleeve of Yahaba's pajama shirts. True Kyoutani is somethings buried deep and those bits that Yahaba got to witness where only just scratches to the surface. 

"I wonder if why his father kicked him out is right." He says more to himself than to his mother, whose trying to balance the tall teen on her lap without getting uncomfterable, whose fingers constantly work the strands of his hair, the strands bending at the will of her fingers. Although it's more to himself, she asks him what he means. 

"What?" 

"His father was yelling at him." He answers, breathing to inhale more of that scent he likes. "He called him a faggot- and it sounded like that's all he was angry about. And I mean, he called him that a lot." 

"What else did he say?" She drags further, her voice milking a tone Yahaba doesn't think he's ever heard her use. 

Yahaba stammers, but forgets how vulgar both him and his mother can truly be. He lowers his voice so as to not spread a possibly untrue rumor around that includes the boy who is in the midst of an operation. "Said he was using sex to get money for volleyball and stuff. Momma, I don't think that's true. Kyoutani's to prideful." 

"Maybe," she says, but she sighs. "People get desperate sometimes, Yahaba, and that's a way of life. It would depend on the situation- I think Kyoutani would do anything for what he does got." 

"He has Miko-Chan." Yahaba declares, and his mother nods. 

"Exactly. It'd have to be the situation- if his father's blowing all this money on the shit that's making him beat his son, where's Kyoutani going to get enough money to buy a bag of thirty-dollar dog food? Or food for himself? Kneepads for volleyball? Medication if he's injured? It's all of these tiny expenses, but they add up- and you teenagers can only work so many hours." 

"I guess." Yahaba sighs eyebrows furrowing. His tears have long since dried, but it's making his cheeks feel tight and crusted over. "I couldn't do it, Momma. Give my body up for some money so I could feed my dog? How does he do it?" 

"The same way he's put up with his dick head of a father for the past seventeen years." 

Yahaba opens his mouth to say something else, to compare himself to mysterious Kyoutani, but their conversation is cut short by a fit of loud, drunken yelling. 

"My son's here? Where the fuck is he?" That voice makes Yahaba cringe- it's Kyoutani's father. He knows because that drunken slur and the vicious profanity he has recognized from the phone call he was forced to overhear. 

"Sir, I'm going to need you to calm down," says the lady at the front desk- the bored looking one that Yahaba had given the clipboard of Lyoutani's information to. She doesn't even look up from the computer, let alone look over at the drunk (or high) man that screams at the entire front desks staff. "What's your sons name?" She asks, tone bored and uninterested. She must be used to this. 

"Kentarou. Fucking Kyoutani Kentarou." He says, and then he jerks around, looking over the empty waiting room- save for Yahaba and his mother, and a elderly woman who's flipping through a magazine. Yahaba doesn't move, he tenses up against his mother's warm body, who breathes as evenly as she did before, her fingers still twirling his hair. 

"Go sit- I'll get some information from you." She must take his rage as distress, because she suddenly points to where Yahaba and his mother sit. "That boy filled out your sons information sheet for you- I'm sure you know who they are." 

"Sit up, Yahaba." She says into his ear. It sends a shiver of hysteria down his spine because this is really happening. He lifts his head and moves his body into the seat next to her before the man stalks over. He glances at his mother who gives him a sharp nod and a small smile. 'Tell him everything'. 

"What's wrong with Kyoutani?" He barks as soon as he gets over, straight infront of Yahaba's face. His mother puts a hand on his arm, gripping tighter as the man leans over to glare into Yahaba's eyes, searching for whatever it is he's searching for. 

Yahaba is staring straight into the eyes of Kyoutani. They are the same color, with the same sharpness to them that makes Yahaba shiver. Kyoutani has no doubt gotten his spiteful, brash glare from his father, but Yahaba imagines it would be easy to copy something so simplistic as that if it's constantly infront of you. 

"Internal bleeding," is what Yahaba says, short and simple. Not sweet- his voice has a little too much bite to it- but short. "They took him back about an hour ago." 

"Who the fuck are you?" Kyoutani's father plops into the seat next to Yahaba, tired of standing. "A friend? Kyoutani doesn't fucking make friends." 

"I'm his friend." Yahaba says, licking his lips because they've gone dry. He remembers now how he never wiped his face after crying and wonders if Kyoutani's father is sober enough to put two and two together. "I'm also his setter. We know each other from volleyball." He doesn't know why he worded it like that- he isn't anyone's designated setter- he isn't even a fucking regular. If he where, he doesn't think he'd toss to Kyoutani enough to be HIS setter (although he's tossed to the wing spiker many times before). 

The man let's out a laugh. "That shit of a sport! Tell me- have you been the one paying for the shit? You the one who he's been-" He makes a crude gesture with his hand and his mouth- "for money?" 

Yahaba feels his eyes widen for a second, and he sets his jaw before he speaks because he's worried his voice will waver. "No." He says. "I don't know how he gets money." 

"A shame." The man tsks and shakes his head. "You look like someone who'd offer and be fun to get money from." Yahaba has to stop his mouth from opening and letting out a loud breath of air. 

"So, tell me, he came to you, did he?" Yahaba nodded, not wanting to speak after the previous comment- feeling intimidated because that's a grown ass man that said that to him. 

"What a shame, too." The man scoffs. "I figured he woulda dropped before he made his heavy ass outta the door." 

Yahaba gulped, the hand of his mother's gripping his forearm even tighter than before. This man sounded as if he wanted Kyoutani dead. 

"You shouldn't of brought him here." He says, leaning back into the chair with his hands behind his head. "He's just a big fucking thing'a trouble. You'll both see it, so I hope you know what your about to get your asses into." 

"Kyou-Kun hasn't been any trouble, at all." His mother speaks up, leaning over Yahaba to look the man over. "He's wonderful- or he was, until he started coughing up a shit ton of blood. You put your work to him, didn't you? I thought he'd die before we got here." Her eyes look sharper than usual- almost challenging. Yahaba knows she'd take a fight. He thinks it's anger burning flames from Kyoutani's father's comment that had been directed at Yahaba himself. 

"Ain't the worst." He shrugs. "Knocked him flat out this one time." 

Yahaba's chest boils at how flippant his reaction is. It's so uncaring, and it angers him so much that he digs his nails into the skin of his thighs that the shorts don't cover. 

"He might just die in there." Yahaba blurts before he even registers that he spoke. "Bleed out all over the operating table- and that'd leave you in your own puddle of fucking vomit. Choking and sputtering because there's not a single damn person that would help you. He just might die in there, and your shrugging and so un-fucking-caring about it. You did it, just incase you can't fucking remember. You'll end up like him- choking on your own blood. For his sake, I'd hope you'd drown on it all." 

The man smirks, a little more amused. "You sure got a pair of balls down there, don't you, boy? Fiesty. You get it from your bitch of a momma, I bet- your own anger is thicker than my son's and I'm shocked- I bet you'd turn em gay like you done with Kyoutani. Voice a yours would drop pants, you think?" 

Yahaba tightens his lips together. "There's nothing wrong with Kyoutani, you know." His mother speaks up from beside him, not fazed a bit from the sudden outburst. "There's a rule to being a parent, you know- it's being there for your kid even if your not all there. In your case, I'd be fit to believe your hate for your sons apparent sexuality brews from your own stem of demons. Tell me- what made you decide that much on your own? I know he didn't come out to you on his own." 

"He never tells me a lick of shit." He scoffs. "I don't care 'bout what he does, I just gotta make sure he don't feel grown. So I check up on him- when ever he leaves cause I know he thinks he's all grown. I found his porn stash- how else?"  He busts out laughing. 

Yahaba doesn't even touch on that. Kyoutani's bussiness is Kyoutani's so he gives that fact a second thought. 

"Right." His mom says, her voice thick with sarcasm. "Well, I think that's just fine." 

"Tell me, if it was your boy- although he looks like he'd do a couple dudes, ya know," Yahaba bites his tongue at the comment. "What would you do?" 

"I would've been the one that bought it for him." She busts out laughing at how he glares at her, angry with his eyebrows furrowed. Yahaba let's out a small chuckle, and the he feels a hand on his ar- large and hot and sweating. Yahaba jerks off but his grip is fucking strong. 

"What the fuck are you laughing at, boy?" He snarls, his eyes looking even sharper. "You and that whore-" He points to his mother, who's still letting out a couple of tiny laughs. "Think you've got it together. You'll see- you'll fucking see- how much trouble by bitch of a son is. You'll be begging for me to fucking take him back." He let's go and walls straight of the hospital, completely at a disregard for how much he's messed with Yahaba and his mother. 

"What the fuck…." His mom says, and shakes her head, yawning. "I feel sorry for Kyou-Kun, dealing with that everyday. I'm glad he called you, 'Ru. I'm glad you didn't say no to that call like you could've." She curls up in the chair, clearly tired. "At least with us, we gave him a chance." 

"He'd be dead had we not." 

\---

It's the next morning and the doctor rouses them both because Kyoutani is awake and fresh out of surgery. Yahaba feels jittery- meeting Kyoutani's father has shot his nerves all over again, and he hasn't gotten a grip on himself completely since last night. His mother hadn't brought it up at all- she must've used her mother senses and noted how jumpy Yahaba was when the doctor had gently shook him awake. 

"He might be a little groggy- he's on a lot of medication." The nurse is sweet, her smile reassuring as she leads them into the room. She's quiet when she speaks Kyoutani giving him a pat on the shoulder. "I brought your friends to see you, Kentarou-Kun." 

The nurse steps out a view and Yahaba looks the wing spiker over- the cut on his nose is less swollen and has a couple of stitches and his eye has considerably dropped in size. His face is pale and his eyes look almost milky- hazing from either the pain or the pain medication. The nurse gives them a smile and steps out of the room, shutting the door behind her. 

"He came?" Kyoutani asks simply, his voice tired and slightly drugged. Yahaba offers a nod, as he and his mother sit in the chairs that our left of Kyoutani's bed- the ones infront of the window. 

"He had a lot to say." Yahaba offers when Kyoutani doesn't speak. "He's fucking crazy." Kyoutani looks up at Yahaba and stares him down with his glassy eyes, his head tilting ever the slightest. 

"What'd he say?" Kyoutani interrogates after at moment. He must see Yahaba's glance that he shoots at his mother, because he wants her to tell the story- because Kyoutani says 'Nevermind, I don't want to know what the asshole said.'. 

"How are you feeling, Kyou-Kun?" His mother asks, resting her hand on his arm, soft and reassuring it must be, because Kyoutani let's out a loud exhale. 

"Like shit." He says, completely honest, and Yahaba didn't expect another kind of answer from the boy, because the answer bleeds Kyoutani through and through. "Tired." He adds after, his gaze flicking up to Yahaba for a moment. 

"What's wrong with you?" Kyoutani says, gesturing to Yahaba, who gives him a confused look. Kyoutani pushes on. "Your shaking and watching you makes my head hurt. What did he really say?" 

Yahaba sighs. "Crazy shit." He offers, but Kyoutani doesn't look convinced. 

"Did he touch either of you?" He presses on. "He likes starting fights. Did he?" 

Yahaba fidgets, feeling just how hard his legs are trembling. "He asked if I was the one you've been blowing to get money and I told him no and he told me that was a shame. He called Momma abunch of names. He told us about how he knocked you out for a long time and told us we shouldn't of brought you here. He told us about the porn stash. He sounded like he wanted you dead, Kyoutani. He walked out after and that was that, but he-" 

"Wanted me dead." He finishes, and Yahaba gives a shaky nod. "Yeah. Crazy fucking bitch." He curses, looking up at the cieling. 

"Did he really knock you out? Has this really happened before?" Yahaba questions, glancing to his mother after he speaks, and she offers a reassuring smile. 

"That did." Kyoutani admits. "I didn't come to practice that week. I thought I had a damn concussion." 

"Shit." Yahaba gives a weak left. "And to think I yelled at you for skipping practice." 

Kyoutani shrugs. "Yeah. Your a fucking dick." He finalizes, letting out a scoff. "That's all he said?" 

"He said you'd be a lot of trouble to live with. Like a warning." 

Kyoutani scoffs again. "Of course he did. He always has a fucking problem with something. What he do when he found out why I was here?"

Yahaba doesn't answer, pulling at his fingers, so Kyoutani answers his own question with the correct answer- because he knows his father. "He laughed, I bet. Probably fucking said it was better that way, didn't he?" 

"Pretty much," Yahaba says. "He really is a bitch, isn't he?" 

Kyoutani looks over at Yahaba and holds his gaze. His milky eyes don't look away for the longest, and Yahaba stares back. "Sure is." Kyoutani agrees, eyes flashing something Yahaba's doesn't think he's ever seen before in those sharp things on Kyoutani's face that are constantly empty and unchanging.

There's a flash of something so familiar to Yahaba it makes him long to scream, or burst into tears, or both- because it's a flash of amusement in Kyoutani's  eyes before they return empty and sharp and he looks away. Yahaba's heart gives a stutter and he feels the need to run. So he runs. 

\----

"You could've called and told me all of that shit, Shigeru!" Watari screeches, nearly flinging the plate of milk buns. Watari's black shirt his covered in powder, and Yahaba's hands are coated sticky from the two of them making homemade milk bread. "That shits crazy! Oh my- Kyoutani's been putting up with all that? It's no wonder he's so damn cold!" 

"Exactly." Yahaba agrees, taking a piece of the bread before Watari drops the entire thing and it goes to waste, because Watari is slinging his entire body to emphasize just how crazy Yahaba's reacounting is. "I was so surprised- I mean- how the fuck? After I saw him do what he did in the hospital, I had to get out." 

"I know, I know." Watari says, patting his sticky hands on Yahaba's parted hair. He had left the hospital, with Kyoutani and his mother in it, to drive home and clean himself up. But somehow, he had found himself parking in Watari's driveway and banging on his door, telling him to 'hurry the fuck up' because his legs couldn't stop, wouldn't stop, shaking. 

Miko-Chan had been so distressed when Yahaba had opened the front door that she had barreled into him with full force, knocking him over backwards on the porch and licking at his face, before sniffing around for what Yahaba's figured was Kyoutani. He had fed her using meat from the fridge and let her outside to do her bussiness and stretch her legs while he had showered. 

And then he was here. 

"It's crazy," Watari finalizes. "What are you going to do? With Kyoutani? And what you heard his father say about him?" 

"Let him stay." Yahaba shrugged. "I mean, when I talk to him nothing hardly feels different. Gay or abused or not.i think half of that shit was his father talking straight out of his ass, anyways." 

"Especially the part with gay porn stash." Watari chuckled, biting into a piece of milk bread. "Kyoutani has his own bussiness, but his dad beating him for it? Because he likes guys? It doesn't justify his actions at all." 

"Homophobics would think it wrong." Watari says with a soft, reassuring laugh, because he can sense that Yahaba hasn't entirely calmed down entirely. Watari opens his mouth to say something, but Yahaba's phone dings with a new message. 

Mom <3 : Can you bring Kyou-Kun some clothes? The nurse is trying to get him to take a shower but he doesn't have clothes. Thanks, Ru! I'll see you! 

"Watari, I gotta go." Yahaba says, finishing his piece in a swift bite. "I gotta grab some of Kyoutani's shit from the house." 

"Okay, okay- your leaving me so soon and you're going to pay for betraying me, Yahaba." Watari tsks, shaking his head and waving a finger. "I mean it." 

"Right, of course, yeah." Yahaba says, laughing between his words. He turns towards the door and starts walking. "I'll see you, Watari-Kun!" 

There's the shattering of a plate as it hits the wall next to the door, and he jumps back a couple of feet at the sudden crash. The plate is in shatters and the milk bread falls quick to the floor. 

"Atleast take some milk bread with you, you dirty boy!" He hears Watari yell has he rushes out of the house, laughing to himself at his best friends antics. He hurries back home, where he unlocks the door and stalks his way upstairs, the smell of old blood hitting his nose. He needs to do something with his sheets. 

He trashes the blanket- which is covered in the liquid that's dried to an ugly brown. It's splattered in multiple directions, ugly and brown and it looks like something of a crime scene- like something Yahaba sees in the Japanese murder mysteries that him and his mother like to watch - occasionally they bet on the killer with their desert right at the beginning of the movie. The always bet the same exact thing. 

"It's the mother." Yahaba guesses everytime, although his hardly ever correct. 

"Wanna bet? It's the nieghbor." She smirks, and generally she takes his desert in her awaiting hands with a prideful winning gleam in her eyes. 

He has no choice but to trash the blanket, and the sheet itself, because some of the blood has seaped through the  fluffy top blanket and into the thinner one. He'll need another solid white set. After, with Miko-Chan treading on his heels, her tail wagging everytime he looks down at her, he goes through Kyoutani's bag, which is the one he uses for volleyball, as Kyoutani recognizes the outside print of black with the dog pin on the front. 

He unzips the bag and goes through its contents, unable to tell what exactly is what, because the clothes have been thrown in there in a flurry. And Yahaba doesn't blame him- he probably would've left without a bag packed at all. He gives up a minute after, and dumps the contents of the bag on his uncovered mattress. 

He pushes Kyoutani's volleyball shoes off to the side and begins folding the clothes that are wrinkled from being cramped in the bag. He smooths those out, because wrinkles in clothes make him cringe, and folds the shirts by hand. After he's done, he goes through the bag to make sure there's nothing stray or loose at the bottom. 

His fingers brush the tag, reading at the name that's been scribbled out and replaced in Kyoutani's own large print in black marker. It's a hand me down, but Yahaba shrugs and puts the clothes back in by stack- the shirts in one, shorts in another, and underwear in the smallest of the bags and puts the Volleyball shoes to the far right side of the bag. He refills the other items and zips it shut, slinging it over his shoulders. He pets Miko-Chan before he leaves, her head nuzzling into the thigh like she does Kyoutani, her tail wacking against the floor with heavy thumps. He hates leaving her, and he refills the plastic bowl of water for her incase they won't be back by the end of the day. He checks his phone as he hops into the car, noting how it's only ten o'clock and he's been out for almost three hours. 

"Well, shit," He curses, and he hurries along back to the hospital, the radio playing quietly in the background. He gets to the hospital fifteen minutes later and stalks his way into Kyoutani's room, where he's being giving a fresh round of painkillers and a nurse rechecks the incesion that's littered itself into the stomach covered in blank and blue and yellow, as the bruises either start to fade or continue to get more prominent on the slightly tanned skin. The incesion itself it's thin, a pale pink with the stitches put in place to put the skin back together. 

The nurse gives a smile. "Would you like to try to shower?" She directs to Kyoutani, noting how Yahaba's plops the bag on the floor. "Your incesion will be cleaned on its own- I wouldn't scrub it yourself- you could know a stitch out." 

"Okay." He says simply, looking at the thin cut on his stomach back to the nurse again. "Yeah. I'll shower." 

"Wonderful," she exclaims, her smile sweet. She beckons to Yahaba, who has busied himself by draping a coat over his mother's steadily rising shoulders, because she's curled up in the chair, straight snoring. The hand that covers her face does no justice in muffling the loud noise that stems from the back of her throat, deep and chest-gurgiling snores that make Yahaba cringe. She's always snored this loud. "Could you help me? I'm going to need you to sit in there with him incase something happens- he's still groggy, and the new dose might kick in- he'll be wobbly on his feet." 

Yahaba doesn't bat an eye. "Yeah, sure." The help the wounded boy out of the bed, giving him a moment for all the blood to start flowing again, and dragging him to the shower, where the nurse shows Kyoutani which nozzle does what to the temperature. She smiles and cracks the door as Yahaba digs out clothes from Kyoutani's bag. 

"I'll be near the room," she says, looking up to smile at Yahaba. "I have some other patients to check up on- but if something happens, just press that red button above the bed and I'll come running, alright?" 

"Okay." Yahaba says, nodding. "I'll make sure he doesn't fall. Or pass out or something." He gives her a smile on his own. 

She laughs. "He's just a little wobbly- he shouldn't pass out or anything. Just keep an eye on him, and make sure he doesn't ignore what I said about the stitches- that wound can still bleed quite a bit, even if he only rips out a couple." 

"Okay." He says and she leaves, and he stalks into the bathroom. 

Kyoutani stands naked, his fingers brushing over the bruises on his stomach, poking at the darker ones. Yahaba watches him do so and gives Hime a scolding. 

"Oi, asshole, you'll make it worse." He huffs, closing the door to a crack. Kyoutani turns with a glare, eyebrows furrowed. He continues to poke at the bruised flesh, ignoring Yahaba completely. "Ism being serious, you dick." 

"Did your Ma ever teach you to fucking knock?" Kyoutani spits, but when he speaks his words don't have as much bite as the ones before. "They don't hurt as much as this shit." He says, running a finger down the stretch of the incesion that runs down the middle of his stomach. 

"Better than fucking choking on your own blood." Yahaba decides, stalking past the ass-naked wing spiker and sitting himself on the toilet. "Can you shower? I got a job to do." 

"Your annoying me." Kyoutani says, but he turns around and starts the water, and Yahaba catches a glance at the bruises that line themselves all over the skin of his back- multiple circles of deep toned purples. The skin of his lower back is completely covered- not a single lick of white skin bleeds through a tattoo of deep purple and black. Some are yellowed around the edges, and others are more faded. 

"Shit, Kyoutani. Is there any part of you he doesn't hit?" He blurts and Kyoutani doesn't even blink. 

"Not really." Kyoutani answers gruffly. "Would you mind your damn bussiness?" Kyoutani huffs, pulling back the curtain and lifting a leg to step over the edge. He looks like his struggling so Yahaba stands and offers up help. 

"No." Kyoutani barks, turning around and giving a glare. "I'll do it myself. Not the first damn time." And Yahaba sinks back unto the closed lid of the toilet, watching as he tries to get his second leg over the white porcelain wall of the tub. 

It's only a split second, but Yahaba's trained eyes catch when he body tilts a little too far to the side, and he stands as Kyoutani's body falls, the wing spiker hitting the tub floor with a wet smack. 

"Ahh fucking shit. Hell. Shit. Fuck. Fuck me." He swears, teeth gritted as he tries to push his body back up to stand again. "Don't help me. I said I fucking got it." He says to Yahaba, whose next to where Kyoutani struggles on the floor of the shower. 

"Stop being so fucking difficult." Yahaba snaps, leaning over and clamping his hands to Kyoutani's shoulders. "You know, if you'd fucking let people help you it'd make it easier. Just yesterday you where coughing up your own fucking blood and crying over it, and now your trying to do this shit by yourself when you can't. There's some things you can't fucking do alone, Kyoutani." 

Kyoutani scoffs, but he doesn't fight him anymore, and Yahaba helps him up, the wing spiker wobbling on his own two feet. 

"Your right." He says, as he stands naked beneath the shower head. "Your fucking right and your a fucking dick for that." 

Yahaba offers a smirk. "Of course I'm fucking right." His eyes watch how his body tilts slightly foreward as he tries to bend to get the shampoo from off of the edge as it sits in the corner of the tub. Yahaba takes it and offers it to him, the spray from the shower head cold on his face as it bounces off of Kyoutani's body. 

"Your going to have to learn to admit that." Yahaba continues to speak, even if he thinks Kyoutani isn't listening. "Admit when you need help- because trying to balance all that shit on your own is what's going to really take you down. It won't be what a surgery can fix. Eventually, it'll be just you, fighting this shit you've had to fight already. No one will be there. It'll be just you and your problems and if you treat them like how your doing now, that will be the shitty fucking bite you take." 

Kyoutani doesn't respond, and Yahaba catches himself slipping out questions before he can stop them, resuming his spot perched on the toilet seat. "What's your father on, anyways, to abuse you like he does?" 

"Whatever he gets his fucking hands on." Kyoutani responds. "He's probably done all the shit in the books. He mixes the shit, too. Dangerous, killing type shit- the stuff that makes you get all fucking buzzed and makes you hallucinate at the same time. He isn't always buzzed or high, though. He just does it to do it." 

"Without a reason? Your father's a fucking dick." Yahaba says, and Kyoutani offers nothing from the side of the shower curtain for a moment. 

"He's got his reasons, and I'm sure he told you about the ones he's got." Kyoutani huffs. " He's a fucking dick, but he's got the facts." 

Yahaba thinks back to Kyoutani's father mentioning the porn stash. "Like the porn he said he found? I thought he was just speaking out his ass." Yahaba blurts, and that earns him another loud scoff. 

"Yeah. Whatever. Like the fucking porn." Kyoutani bites out his words, and Yahaba thinks he shouldn't of brought it up. But he pushes his on. 

"So he beat you over porn." He says, but it isn't a question, it's a statement. "That's extra. Like if he's offended over your porn, then what's he watch? That vanilla shit?" 

Kyoutani gives out a breath, like he's holding back a laugh. "Right. Vanilla shit. Not just the porn- 'cause he thought I'd been blowing someone for money. 'Cause I'm gay or whatever." 

"He does suck, then." Yahaba states. "Anyways how do you get your money?" 

"Iwaizumi." Is all Kyoutani says. Iwaizumi's been giving cash on the side- probably not much, but cash nonetheless. Iwaizumi, although angry and violent, is giving and kind- Iwaizumi giving Kyoutani a bit of cash would be nothing of the unusual. But that meant Iwaizumi knew Kyoutani's story. "I don't know where Pa got his bullshit from."

Yahaba nods, although Kyoutani can't see it. "He talks out of his ass, doesn't he?" 

He can almost feel the smirk that he's sure rests on Kyoutani's face. "He never hasn't." 

\---

Word Count : 8,026 (Even more than the last Chapter !!! 

-This entire thing took around four days ? I kept running into issues because this chapter had a considerable amount of dialogue, and I'm terrible at dialogue. Plus I went to the library and grabbed myself a couple of books and I've actually been reading those over trying to write out chapters and update my stories. I wasn't planning on ending the chapter so ubruptly, but when I finally got to the scene where Yahaba and his mother visit Kyoutani, I was already at around 6-7 thousand words. I ended up cutting the scene where Yahaba meets Watari considerably shorter, although I had planned for Watari to give more of his own personal insight and for Yahaba to have a breakdown there, too. But I think 10,000 words a chapter might just be too much? Idk.   
-Did anyone else enjoy the Yahaba & Watari scene? I know it was short but I wanted to give you a little bit of insight on how much Yahaba confides in Watari in my fic, because there's more of the friendly scenes to come. I also loved how I wrote out Yahaba's thoughts on Kyoutani dying and the etc, that made its way into place.   
\- The center for this chapter wasn't a group of songs, it was actually Yahaba's own feelings and Oikawa's own personal quote. While I was reacounting (in Yahaba's POV) Kyoutani's injuries and his father's violence, I couldn't stop thinking about the quote. I realized that it could hold multiple different meanings, and how reletive it was to the plot of my story, so I had to incorporate that through Yahaba.   
-In the shower scene, I actually planned on Kyoutani accepting help from Yahaba directly- I hadn't planned a fall of any kind, but it happened. I wanted to show how self-reliant Kyoutani is in himself, and I wanted Yahaba to release kind of that pent up anger and stress he's had the last two days- I wanted to create that little bit of tension between the two for that second.   
-For this chapter, the warnings remain the same, and there is no song list (because I hardly listened to any music at all while I wrote) but in the next chapter, warnings might be put into place. 

Estimated read time (based on document statistics) : 1 hour and 8 minutes 

-Hope you enjoyed :)  (will be cross-posted) 

\---


	3. Chapter Three

Kyoutani is consumed into the world of endless nightmares, the colors of vibrancy and darkness swirling themselves together, oranges and reds mingling with greys and blacks- only to be eventually consumed by the pitch of the color. Kyoutani's dream landscapes always start off pitch black, though, so as he releases a breath he relaxes- the color behind his eyelids familiar. 

So he settles back into the stiffness of the hospital mattress, shoulder blades digging into the hardness of it, his nose pointed at the cieling. He can hear loud, feminine snoring pounding itself in his ear drums- the sound of it gurgling and echoing. He can hear the sound of something much quieter- something barley weezing and low and almost… soft. The sounds are chokingly unfamiliar yet settling, and as he pays more attention to the diversity of the sounds of sleep, he ignores the swirling pitch of the start of a nightmare and drifts away. 

Where a part of him wishes to never return. 

\----

Tiny hands are balled into tight, clenching fists. Tears leak from the corners of wide, dark eyes, the ends of his black hair sticking to his skin from the wet salt. 

His hair has never been this long. 

Kyoutani pulls his small knees against his chest and wraps tiny arms around them, making his body as small as he can get it to go. The bottoms of jackets feel oddly comforting against the top of his head, but his tiny body still shakes, trembling in what he can recognize as fear. He can hear the loud yelling that echoes throughout the hall, the sounds echoing through thin wall. He attempts to block it out, clenching his eyes shut and pressing his nose against one of his knees, rocking his body until his hunched back digs into the back wall of the dark closet. It's so familiar for him, even if he can't be any older than seven- his face is round and young, eyes bright with childhood innocence, his body small and ungrown. 

He tries to block it out, but the yelling reaches him- he can hear the harsh tones of his father's baritone voice, feel it in the way his body rattles when he hears it. 

"Fucking brat." Echoes throughout small ears. A shrill voice, loud and screeching comes after. 

"Don't speak about him like that!" His mother exclaims, voice high and shrill and grating. "That's our son! You don't get to speak about him that wa-" 

The smack that echoes through the walls is even more shrill than the octave of his mother's high voice- he can feel the action burn deep in the pit of his stomach, feel it attaching itself to his skin. 

Something strong and akin to anger fits itself deep in his stomach, burning fiery hot. Sharpened eyes fit themselves on the pale blue coloring on the white paint of his closed door- the burning in his stomach finding it's way to settle on his face. He knows this fire- boiling and red-hot, because he sees something very similar in the face of his father. 

Younger Kyoutani glares, eyes sharp and cutting, into the marks of crayon, hot and fiery and bold. He adopts the thing- he makes it his own, and it only grows stronger when he hears more sharp yelling. He adopts the glare and makes it his own- body fitting with rage as he twists the look around and tries it on his face for the first time. 

Younger Kyoutani makes a vow that he will never cry again. 

And although sometimes it hurts, he never does. 

Never does and never will. 

Although he really wants. 

\----

Kyoutani's eyelids part themselves slowly, the dark of the cieling meeting his unblinking gaze. He states at it for moment on end- unsure if the swirling black is his sleep of if the swirling black is reality, eyes focusing on it and threatening to tear it apart. 

A voice fits itself into the silence, unwavering, deep with the effect of tire. "Can't sleep?" Yahaba offers, voice drawing Kyoutani to face him. He sits awake, body sitting in one of the hard waiting chairs, face illuminated by the dimmed glowing screen of his phone. 

"Can you?" Kyoutani nearly snaps, although there isn't an inch of his body feeling anger. He feels the emotion as naturally as his heart beats inside of his chest and as the blood that flows in his veins. He swallows- because there's a part of him that knows Yahaba doesn't deserve the bit of anger that he's giving. 

"Nah." He's tired voice answers, the yellow-white of the phone screen casting almost creepy shadows along his face. His eyes, illuminated by the light of the device, search Kyoutani entirely. "You move around. When you sleep," He offers, shrugging almost indifferently. "You get nightmares a lot, don't you?" 

"Yeah," Kyoutani's voice is gruff as he pushes his body up into a sit, the act of it pulling at the bruises lining his back, muscles twitching and pulling along. "Don't you?" He asks, palms flat into the hardness of the bed, the stiffness of it pushing against large fingers as he struggles to get his back straight. 

"Let me help." Yahaba offers, hands clasping along his shoulders. Yahaba has setters hands- the longer fingers and the smoother skin- grip strong yet almost dainty. Kyoutani feels his muscles tense from the contact, and he fights the nerves in his mind that are screaming at him to run. Nerves that have chosen flight over fight because he had gave up fighting a long time ago, because taking flight had been the only thing that didn't kill him. 

He doesn't think Yahaba will hurt him, though- as soft, easy hands help push him into a straight sit- he knows it like the fact of the sky is blue. 'Yahaba wouldn't hurt me,' he thinks, feeling the warmth of touch along his shoulders before they leave again- the ghost of the touch lingering and making him feel jittery. He blames his nerves on the influence of medication and the haziness of sleep- he's normally never this discontroled. 

"Better?" Yahaba offers, voice sluggish as he yawns, loud and echoing. Kyoutani nods- it's all he can muster as his throat tightens itself up and his tongue loses its moisture. "Does it hurt?" 

"Like shit," Kyoutani gets out after a pause, bouncing back and collecting himself into that angry, edging calm. "You couldn't sleep cause of a nightmare, niether, could you?" 

Yahaba offers a breath and Kyoutani is sure that Yahaba has shrugged indifferently.  The phone has shut off, has timed out, and the room is pitch dark- Kyoutani can't see anything of Yahaba but a fuzzy haze of his outline. Kyoutani can feel him, though, senses blaring. His skin burns from the close proximity, his heart thumps heavily in his chest out of reflexive fear. He feels entirely on edge no matter how many times the thought repeats itself in pink brain-flesh. 

"Yeah." Yahaba says, probably realizing that Kyoutani can't exactly see his bodily response. Silence fits itself into the room after that- the quiet waves of it being broken in little spurts from Yahaba's mother's almost masculine snoring. Kyoutani searches the darkness of the room, eyes picking out little outlines of things that his brain recognizes without the lack of the light. 

There's always been a lack of light somewhere. Around him. Empty dark air that never splits- there are material so pitch black that light can't shine through it, after all. It never splits because a light never shines through, so the outlines his eyes pick out are nice and firm and hold a shape. 

"Nightmares are shitty." Yahaba's voice breaks the silence many minutes later, quiet and easy and soft. It's reassuring- Kyoutani remembers the sound of it from younger days spent with curled in his mother's lap, glaring holes at whatever he could that wouldn't ever glare back. "They just fucking suck." 

Kyoutani shrugs and then says, "I'm used to it." Like it's normal- because that's exactly what it is. Nightmares are so regular that a nice dream is rare. He thinks he'd probably give anything to have another good dream again. 

"They really fucking suck," Kyoutani offers  in response, echoing Yahaba's words. "Everything does." 

"Not everything," Yahaba says honestly, Kyoutani turning as the phone illuminates the room again. It's flashing some bold color with a text- but Yahaba doesn't touch it. The green of the flashing light starts up every ten seconds- pushing through the pitch of the room a glowing alien shade of green. "Some things are good things. Just other things are shitty, right?" 

Kyoutani mentally sighs. "Your still a dick." He says, his facial expression feeling plain as it sits on his face. God, he really means that. 

"Your really fucking terrible." Yahaba responds, serious to his tone and evident it's truth in the way the words roll from his tongue- smooth and sure and prepared. "Why the fuck did you call me, anyways?" 

Kyoutani stares into the room until Yahaba's phone blinks that alien light again. "I don't know." He says almost stubbornly- but he honestly doesn't know why. He doesn't know why he called fucking Yahaba Shigeru out of the couple options he had. 

He knows that Iwaizumi would've been more than welcoming to let him stay. Iwaizumi had already known some of the tiniest of details of his situation when Kyoutani had said he needed a little bit of cash- so wouldn't it have made more sense to pick Iwaizumi? So why the fuck had he called Yahaba then? Yahaba was someone he didn't get along with, on or off of the volleyball court- someone he'd rather hit than try to talk too. 

But his brain had automatically told him to go to Yahaba first- his brain had made that decision before he could've even fought against it. He isn't sure of what part of his stupid fucking brain had pulled the rest of him to Yahaba, Yahaba fucking Shigeru, class-a dickhead, mastery of bitch trickery. 

But class-a dickhead had saved his pitiful life and Kyoutani definitely knew atleast that much. Without Yahaba, Kyoutani knows he would've choked on his own blood somewhere- drowned in the hot liquid on the side of the street somewhere, probably. 

But Kyoutani doesn't know why Yahaba is trying so hard when honestly all Kyoutani can think about is why he just didn't let himself die in the first place when he had the chance. His next words are so stern and sharp he isn't surprised at all. 

"Why the fuck did you save me?" Fits itself into the room and holds itself onto the darkness of it- it's fitted into almost stunned, surprised silence and it fits so perfectly well there- venom dripped from Kyoutani's own sharp tongue. It's heavy and weighted and thick when it comes from Kyoutani's throat, but Yahaba only is silent for a couple seconds until his response hangs itself in the dark void. 

"Would you rather me not?" Sometimes Kyiutani forgets that Yahaba is just as quick-witted and sharped-tongued as him, and the green light of the blinking phone illuminates Yahaba's angry, glaring face that's turns staring straight into Kyoutani's soul. "I didn't have to take your ass in." He follows, those words slightly less sharpened than the ones that they follow. 

"I don't fucking know." Kyoutani says, the anger of himself curling the insides of his stomach, twisting the battered organs even more. "You probably should've just fucking left me to croak." 

Yahaba's words are soft again- bipolar in the way they go from sharp and pointed to soft and rounded. "I did it because I wanted to." He says, and Kyoutani bites his teeth into his lip, the saltiness of it spreading along his tongue. 

"I'll fix you." He declares next, Kyoutani watching the seriousness flood his alien-green tinted face. It's a pledge- a promise- and all of those little inbetweens. 

"You can't." Kyoutani knows that he's a problem- Yahaba hasn't even scratched the surface of the roots of the entirety of his issues. 'He can't fix you,' the voice is almost demonic and not his own. 'He won't love you.' It's dark and sits something heavy on his heart- of course he won't love him. Some fag with problems. He won't love him enough to bother fixing him because he's broken. Kyoutani will do it alone. He hopes he just dies alone because it'll be easier, simpler then. Dying alone sounds good- Kyoutani figures that he should eventually get to it sometime. It's got to be more relaxing than Yahaba making a promise that he doesn't even know is impossible to keep. 

"I'll try." Yahaba echoes as the room floods with pitch black again. Yahaba is a fucking moron. Class-a dickhead, occasional dumbass. 

"You'll just fucking leave." Kyoutani spits, full of spite and hate and he knows his words are stabbing. Good- Kyoutani wants him to fucking run away. Kyoutani can handle fixing himself on his own- he knows of a couple of ways he could 'fix' himself and he knows that he sure as hell doesn't need Yahaba Shigeru's fucking aid in doing it. 

Yahaba laughs- actually laughs- deep from his gut and throaty and real. "If I wanted to leave you, I would've left your ass a long damn time ago." He says, stopping to laugh again, probably wiping away tears that Kyoutani can't see because he's laughing so hard. "I told you that you couldn't do this shit on your own, didn't I? I really meant that shit. So I'm going to help you- I'm going to be the one to finally fucking know you." 

"You don't know me." Kyoutani says, turning away after counting the time increment of the flashing phone, glaring holes into wall when the green fits into the room because he honestly doesn't think he could look at Yahaba now. 

"Not you." Yahaba says, his laughter ceasing, although the tone of it is still evident when he speaks. "Real you. But only if you'll agree to show me." 

Kyoutani doesn't know why his words slip from his usually filtered mouth- why they come out so desperate and cracking- why he's suddenly feeling emotion press down on his shoulders- the touch so different from Yahaba's nimble fingers. 

"Then fucking h-help me." He says, turning to look at the setter, feeling unfamiliar tears pool into his normally stern, hard-gazing eyes. Yahaba only turns to him and smiles, though, bright and sure- but it disappears a second after because the phone shuts off.

"It's a deal, then." Yahaba promises, words that float around the dark of the room. Kyoutani's chest constricts and pulls at his lungs as he tries to keep himself from bursting. It is a promise, and although most of Kyoutani doesn't want the help at all, there is a small part that longs for it. 

'He is a liar, Kentarou.' That voice in his echoes, gurgling it words. 'You are trusting a liar, Kentarou.'

-

The water is cold- Kyoutani's body shivers at the round droplets that roll down in the dips of his body. He doesn't need to peek out of the curtain to know that Yahaba is sitting, perched on the edge of the closed toilet lid, ready to come to Kyoutani's aid if he needs it. 

As he thinks back to the what had occurred outside of the bathroom, in the midnight pitch black of his room, Kyoutani comes to a realization. 

It'd the second time he's let his guard down. It's the second time he's cried in front of Yahaba- and for part of him, that's two times too many. 

But for the rest of him, he knows that in the eyes of Yahaba he isn't weak- not now, not when Yahaba had promised that'd he'd waste his time fixing him. Not when Yahaba looked concerned when Kyoutani had allowed him the first time to help him step into the shower. 

The room is silent except for the sound of the shower- the sound of the water snaking it's way up through the pipes screaming in Kyoutani's ears as he stands under it, washing suds from his body, letting the coolness of the water sooth the bruises that make patterns in his skin. Some of the marks laid bare to his skin by his father have turned into some ugly yellow black- some of them are still prominent in their shades of blues and purples. Some of the cursed marks send pain through his body if he moves a certain way, the ones in his lower back especially. 

The nurse had cleaned his cuts and the area of his incision on her own- the medicated stuff had burned like hell and fizzled along as it cleaned the damned things, something sharp that had made Kyoutani tense up tight, muscles stiff until the burning of the alcohol had eventually faded. 

All he knew was the incision was damn ugly to look at. 

It was stitched, the things pulling at the edges of his skin. Although it was straight, it laid bare in the center of his stomach, just above his bellybutton, where the patch of dark hair had been shaved in some awkward line to cut into his skin. Although clean, Kyoutani knew it would scar- all pale and white and cause some ugly dip in his skin where his abs sat, because the cut itself was actually quite long, and he ran a finger over it as he thought about how ugly it really does look. 

"Hey asshole, hurry up, would you?" Yahaba's voice settled itself into Kyoutani's water-logged ears, almost teasing in the way it sounds. "Your not the only one who needs to shower." 

"Can't you just go the fuck home, then?" Kyoutani responds, making sure his loud enough to make his point. 

"I got a fucking job to do, if you can't remember." Yahaba says, sticking to his responsibility of keeping a sit-in while Kyoutani showers. "Your a vary hostile boy, aren't you?" 

Kyoutani scoffs at that. "Whatever," He says, expecting the conversation between the two to die down when he doesn't offer up anything else. 

"Kyoutani, did he only hit you for the porn? Two days ago." Yahaba seems to be unsatisfied in the way Kyoutani wanted the conversation to drop off right there. 

"It doesn't really matter why he hits me," Kyoutani says. "He's still a fucking asshole for doing it." 

Yahaba is quiet for only a moment on the other side of the curtain and Kyoutani finishes up his shower. "What are you gonna tell them?" 

"The hell? Tell who?" Kyoutani turns and shuts off the water, watching the droplets of it drip from the shower head for a couple of moments. He pulls the curtain back and Yahaba's arm sits already outstretched, the cloth hanging from his arm. Kyoutani takes it without a word. 

"The nurses, the police, whoever they bring to talk to you." Yahaba explains, his eyes resting themselves straight in Kyoutani's, who dries himself off. "They know you didn't have to have a surgery for taking a shit fall." 

Kyoutani is quiet. He can tell them everything- everything from the very start of it all- or he can keep quiet and not share a word. He can keep his father's true identity safe or get him sent to prison for it. 

But he's never told anyone before. 

The nurses are nice- sweet ladies young or old who smile kind as they do their job, who talk with sweet, soft voices and sparkling eyes because they actually care. Police can be more brash, more difficult to work with- but Kyoutani knows that if anything, and police officer would be the correct person to bring it up too if he wants his father sent to prison. If he tells them everything, everything from the beginning to the end- the end being just two days ago- prison is sure to be the place where his asshole of a father will be sent. 

"I'd tell them everything." Kyoutani says, having been so caught up in thought he notices that Yahaba's already help him out of the shower and that he's already dried himself off. 

That's right- Yahaba will be there, too. Yahaba will hear it all. Kyoutani knows that eventually it will all be found out - every last bit of the fact- everything that had been done to him because he was the victim of something deep and dark and satanic. 

"Kyoutani," Yahaba says, as the blonde runs the towel over his cropped hair. His voice is so serious it reminds him of being on the court - limply being slammed with his back against the brick of the gym, Yahaba's long fingers clasped to the desk on the collar of his Aoba Johsai jersey. "Would it make it easier, if you told me first?" 

Kyoutani knows it wouldn't. It would be the same, to tell Yahaba or not telling him at all, but he has to start somewhere- he has to atleast get his palate ready. He knows that it will be a hard task, to relive it all so vividly as he will speak it. 

He stares at the boy, the cloth of the towel digging into the skin of the back of his neck as he let's it sit there, poking into his freshly showered skin. "I don't know." He says finally. "I've never told anybody."

"Start with me, then," Yahaba decides, arm extended, clothes hanging from the tips of his outstretched fingers.  Kyoutani takes the clothes and dresses on his own - still a little wobbling on his stiff legs and the movement of holding his arms over his head send ruptures of pain through the length of bruised skin on his back and stomach. "I'm an asshole, but I'm also a damn good listener."

Kyoutani stares at him, wondering why the hell Yahaba is even bothering to try. Yahaba won't crack him- Kyoutani knows that although persistent Yahaba's voice of reason doesn't seem strong enough. That and part of him believes that if he keeps Yahaba too close that eventually Kyoutani himself will cause enough trouble to make the boy drift off. 

"You'll hear it." Kyoutani decides, voice firm in the way he directs it to the setter, who looks at him with eyes glinting something bright that reminds Kyiutani of persistence. "Eventually." To Kyoutani is seems almost like the cowards way out to not tell the boy directly. His words our simple and he watches Yahaba meet his gaze, looking almost defiant, before he finally nods along, the action seemingly forced and stiff. 

"Okay." Yahaba decides, shrugging to make himself look indifferent. Yahaba is patient - Kyoutani knows because he's pushed the boy to the breaking point of his set limits and it took Kyoutani a hell of a lot of pushing to achieve that. Kyoutani had broke that point only once - had tested Yahaba's limits of his patience until Yahaba had finally snapped. 

Kyoutani never would've thought that Yahaba would've had that much strength, oddly enough. Kyoutani had never viewed Yahaba in that way - he had viewed him a type of push-over, a little bitch in that sense. But Yahaba had proved him wrong, the anger in Yahaba's eyes that had been directed at Kyoutani himself. Kyoutani's act of submission had been pure then. 

"That day," Yahaba says, as if knowing of what Kyoutani was thinking at that moment. "Was the realist I have seen you." He says, watching Kyoutani with focused eyes as he runs the towel over his dyed hair. 

"That was all you." Kyoutani answers simply, running the towel to collect the water that's settled behind his ears. "If the rest of them wanted me to be different, then they should've done what you did on that volleyball court." 

"The court is where most if the magic happens." Yahaba says with a slight shrug. "What got you into volleyball, anyway?" 

"I watched games." Kyoutani says, content with his now dried hair. "National games. Felt like it was something I needed to do." 

"Are you glad you did?" Yahaba asks, using his fingers to flatten down part of is hair, which looks less neat than it normally does. 

Kyoutani sets his eyes to look straight in Yahaba's, who doesn't even blink under his heavy gaze. "Yeah." He says, but he doesn't offer any more explanation than that- because Kyoutani doesn't think he could explain how glad he is to have volleyball. 

When he steps on the court, when he changes into the white and teal uniform, when he hits a spike that earns a point - his life is different. In that split moment, it's no longer a thought of home, a gay boy abused, a dog who whines when he sleeps a minute to long out of worry. On the court he is only a wing spiked, he is only a boy with the number sixteen on his back. Though on the team he is the closest thing to an outsider there is, he is on the team nonetheless. He is not the same, though he is slightly more violent and angry than everyone would like. 

Those times he hadn't shown up to practice had not been for his behavior - they had been because of its father. Because maybe his bones have screamed at him or his head and spun more than usual, because normally when he bruised it hurt to stretch that area of skin, or maybe because an eye was too swollen to see out of. 

Yahaba had called him out on that before - Iwaizumi too, before he new of his predicament, though Iwaizumi's scolding ended after that. But Yahaba hadn't known anything then - he still doesn't, really, because Kyoutani hasn't told him all of it yet. 

Kyoutani doesn't think he can speak most of it aloud.   
He's never said anything about it, never told anyone the entire story, and he doesn't think he could start now. For him, the discussion of it hurts more than it itself, than the bruises or the nightmares combined. 

'You are a coward, Kentarou. A coward. Can you not speak? Do I control you that much?' The voice is stirring much more than usual, he is more active, and the thought of that makes Kyoutani's stomach twist into a knot. 

'Leave me alone.' He says to it, as stern as he can be, as he and Yahaba exit the bathroom together. Yahaba is saying something, but Kyoutani cannot focus on the words that Yahaba is wasting his breath for. Kyoutani can only focus on the heavy weight of his thumping heart in his chest and it beats to a quick pattern because the voice in his head is talking to him again. It threatens to speak to him again, until a new voice is heard when they both cross into the room. 

"Kyoutani Kentarou?" There is a uniform, a badge, and a stack of notecards that stands infront of him. The voice is thick and deep, a voice only a man could have, and he knows that these words are not spoken to him from the voice that speaks in his mind. 

The police officer gives him a faulty smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes when he makes the expression. "I'm here to talk to you about a few things." 

For that moment, Kyoutani decides that he would rather it be the voice in his head that speaks to him. 

Kyoutani looks away from the Officer and faces Yahaba, who gives him the slightest of nods, his slightly disheveled hair not moving a single strand out of place. His eyes are sure, almost trusting in the way Kyoutani sees them, and he turns back to the Officer with his voice caught in his throat and his fists balled at his sides, nails digging into his palms. 

"Okay." He says, although his heart beat echoes in his ears when he says it. 

-  
Yahaba sits and listens, his gaze intent on watching Kyoutani speak - though he explains nothing at all, Kyoutani is shaking as he does, and although faint, Yahaba's trained eyes can see the way his hands tremble, fists clenched on his thighs. 

Kyoutani looks the most vulnerable he ever has. 

"This was done by your father, correct?" The officer asks simply, tapping a pen against a notepad. His questions are smooth, though his voice has an edge to it that rubs Yahaba the wrong way. He has a chair pulled to the edge of the bed, though not sitting as close to Kyoutani as Yahaba is, and his closeness makes Kyoutani eye him with almost a look of.… fear. 

The room is silent, and Kyoutani looks ahead from the Officer, his gaze focused on the wall, unless they turn to look at Yahaba. Yahaba figures that the keeping up of his head is a lack of submission, because the lowering of his head would signify his submission, very similar to that of a wild canine. 

It's been a handful of minutes and Kyoutani hasn't said a word. "Let me ask again." The Officer presses, giving Kyoutani an expression of boredom. "Did your father do this?" Yahaba mentally urges him to respond, to tell the truth, although when a flash of something flits across Kyoutani's face, Yahaba realizes that the truth will not be the case. 

"No." Kyoutani lies, his voice the same as it always is. He makes eye contact with the Officer this time, eyes unblinking, although Yahaba can tell that he has lied out of fear, being from a memory Yahaba is unsure of. 

'No,  Kyoutani, tell him the truth!' Yahaba feels as of he could scream, gritting his teeth to keep his mouth from doing so. Yahaba can only wonder what Kyoutani had thought in that split second, because what had filled Kyoutani's eyes had not been anything he had seen before. 

Yahaba must've looked a certain way, because his mother rests a hand against his knee. "Not now, Shigeru." She says, her head shaking as she speaks. In her eyes he can see her next words - she thinks that Kyoutani has to do this alone- explaining the story is not her and Yahaba's job. 

"I can't help you if you lie, Kentarou." The use of his name causes eyebrows to furrow, an angry look cascades itself along Kyoutani's face. The Officer continues to tap the been against the pad even harder now, impatient with the way Kyoutani refuses to cooperate. 

Kyoutani doesn't reply when the Officer asks again. It's been thirty minutes, and Kyoutani offers up nothing at all. Yahaba has to hold his tongue - there is a reason why Kyoutani is withholding information, because every question the Officer asks he ignores. 

The Officer closes the notepad and pockets the pen on his left breast pocket. "This is going no where." He states, as if he hadn't realized that already. "I'll be back, Kentarou, maybe then you will decide when to tell me what's been going on." He pushes the chair back with his legs as he stands from it, his lips forming a thin line across his face. "I'll ask you one more question - are you sure you don't want to tell me?" 

"I'm not ready." Kyoutani says, looking up at the Officer, eyes as sharp as they have ever been, unblinking in the heavy gaze of the Officer, though his body is still trembling. 

"Thank you." He says simply, before turning and leaving without another word, an emptiness settling into the room that wasn't there before. 

Yahaba watches Kyoutani's head finally lower, letting out a gasp of air from past his lips, hands clenching and unclenching on his thighs. Yahaba cannot see his eyes, though Kyoutani is trembling harder than just half an hour ago. 

"You didn't have to tell him yet." Yahaba offers, though he really wishes that Kyoutani had. Kyoutani had said earlier that he would've told whoever asked everything - and he had said with such a seriousness that Yahaba was positive then that he really would've talked and told the entire story. 

Kyoutani faces him, eyes watering with unshed tears, and Yahaba understands.  The wounds are harder to speak of than they are to deal with, and Yahaba can feel his body stiffen at the way Kyoutani's upper lip shakes. Yahaba understands that it was fear that caused Kyoutani to not speak, and Yahaba wonders if his father had threatened him if he ever did say a single thing about what was happening behind the doors is his home. 

Yahaba gazes into bloodshot eyes, where the emotion is so real and so there he can't find himself to look away because this is a side of the wing-spiker that he has never seen before. The emotion that is present now is much stronger than the emotion from ealier with kyoutani gazing at him, eyes unblinking as the tears threaten to spill from them. 

"I can't tell it." Kyoutani says, voice low and almost cracking. "Not yet. Not fucking now." There is so much emotion in those words, it's so raw and true, that Yahaba isn't sure of what to say next, and he desperately hopes his mother can offer something up. 

"I need you to help me first." He says, the wall of him finally crumbling and cracking as his tears drip out of his eyes, voice cracking as he speaks. "I'll tell it, b-but I need to tell you first." 

Yahaba stares into those crying eyes, feeling emotion bubble up in the pit of his stomach. "I will." He says simply, though his lip trembles ever so slightly as the words leave his mouth. Yahaba finds himself standing, wrapping his arms around broad shoulders as they shake as Kyoutani sobs, a sound that pulls at Yahaba's heartstrings. 

Kyoutani doesn't speak, he only cries with body-wracking sobs, pouring out whatever he has kept in this long. He cried into Yahaba's chest, the sound of it vibrating through his body, shaking him to his core. 

"You'll be okay." Yahaba says, voice as soft as he could get it to go, and he hopes his lackluster self can sound reassuring for the wing-spiker who is crying his heart out. 

Although Yahaba says it, he really hopes that it's true. 

\---

\- IM SO FUCKING SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG - and it sucks. It really does. It's horrid, I know. God it's bad. Buy to try as an attempt to make it better - I already have the next chapter started - Kyoutani is coming home, you guys!  
\- I stopped this at around 6,000 words - I'm going to try to make the next one longer, if possible.   
\- Estimated read time : 46 minutes.  
\- Thank you guys for waiting as patiently as you have. I couldn't ask for a better group of readers :).


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